Hear Famed Hip-Hop Photographer Jonathan Mannion Discuss the "Straight Outta" Campaign

It's all about remembering where you came from.

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Complex Original

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If you've been on social media in the past week, there's no way you haven't seen the "Straight Outta" meme running up and down your timeline. Working as a cross promotion for Beats By Dre and the film Straight Outta Compton, the meme has users insert a location (or just about anything honestly) making for some hilarious juxtapositions. 

 

Straight Outta Compton is already the most memetacular film of 2015 http://t.co/UafbodgEXE pic.twitter.com/KYXkRNqPxE

 

For Jonathan Mannion, the photographer who shot the original images for the "Straight Outta" Beats campaign, it's like seeing the entire world repost photos in his photographic style. Mannion, a Cleveland-native credits the city for shaping much of what drives and inspires him today. It's that concept of remembering where you came from, that directly informed the now-viral ad campaign. 

As Mannion explained in an interview with Bernstein & Andriulli, "What was really at the core of this idea were these major artists, influencers, athletes, and taste makers claiming where they’re from as part of the growth of who they’ve become.”

While the campaign is certainly timeless, it also harkens back to N.W.A.'s original attitude, shifting the conversation by acknowledging their roots and the issues that they experienced living in Compton. The conversations about race that the group started are still being discussed even today—making the biopic more relevant than ever.

“I really think that they nailed the feeling, the style, the emotion in the movie. These are young kids that were doing something that was absolutely groundbreaking for the world, and then realized their voice in the process,” says Jonathan. “I just think that awareness, and certainly there’s a ways to go with everything we’re seeing, but it brings some of these issues right to the forefront that I would say this generation is so passionate about.”

Check the the whole interview (including a behind the scenes video) over at Bernstein & Andriulli

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