Photographs highlight Goldie's rise to fame - in pictures

Former promoter Martin Jones, who played a key part in his early creative career as a successful breakdancer and graffiti artist, is behind the new exhibition.

They first met in 1984 when Goldie and his crew The Wild Criminals were covering the walls of Heath Town, Wolverhampton, with their work.

Mr Jones had just staged the first ever open-air hip hop event in the UK, Thriller in the Park, at Midlands Arts Centre Arena, featuring the ‘first generation’ of Wolverhampton B Boys breakdance crew.

Goldie, who was born Clifford Joseph Price in Walsall, was one of four new members who were recruited to join the crew after the Thriller event, when several older members left to get jobs.

Mr Jones was also looking for a graffiti artist to do backdrops at event s and Goldie, who is now a MOBO award-winning songwriter and DJ, showed him his ‘black book’ full of designs.

As well as getting paid dance gigs for the B Boys, Mr Jones got some large commissions for Goldie’s ‘legit’ crew, The Supreme Graffiti Team, including a Chinatown mural for the Chinese community in the Bull Ring, Birmingham, and a 2,000 sq ft commission from Wolverhampton Council at Long Ley School in Heath Town.

As Goldie's first agent and manager, Mr Jones took hundreds of photos throughout his early career against the backdrop of the emerging hip hop scene in the West Midlands.

Now he has selected some of his images to feature in the new two-part exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Galley. It will also celebrate the release of the Goldie's first solo album in 20 years, The Journey Man.

They include around 30 which the star has used in collage-style artwork for his new CD and vinyl record.

Mr Jones, who lives in Sedgley and remains good friends with the 51-year-old, said he saw the music icon's creative potential as soon as he met him and was delighted when his career took off.

"I thought he was very talented and I hoped he would go on to great things but I never anticipated what he would achieve.

"It's a tribute to his talent as well as the focus and drive in his life," added the 63-year-old.

He said he was 'delighted' that his images had been used for Goldie's album.

"I'm very pleased. Some have been used for t-shirts, some for the CD and others for the vinyl insert. They feature critical moments in his early career," added Mr Jones.

As well as getting paid dance gigs for the B Boys, throughout their association Mr Jones got some large commissions for Goldie’s ‘legit’ crew, The Supreme Graffiti Team, including a Chinatown mural for the Chinese community in the Bull Ring, Birmingham, and a 2,000 sq ft commission from Wolverhampton Council at Long Ley School in Heath Town.

Goldie’s crew were also commissioned to do a backdrop for a breakdance battle on ITV’s children’s show on Saturday morning, Saturday Starship, compèred by Tommy Boyd and Bonny Langford.

In August 1987, Mr Jones arranged a group exhibition at Birmingham Central Library for Goldie, several New York artists, and Robert Del Naja, known as 3D, of Massive Attack, who was then a prolific graffiti artist and rapper in Bristol.

He also organised the first ever International Street Art exhibition in Bridlington in May 1987 attended by artists from all over the world.

The enthusiasm generated by the competition and exhibition led to Mr Jones and Goldie setting up art gallery The Pit in Palfrey in Walsall, with Walsall Youth Arts in 1988.

In the same year, Mr Jones arranged for Goldie to set a world record for the longest spray can mural ever created in a day, measuring 40ft long, as part of the Children in Need in November 1988.

As well as Mr Jones' images, the display at Wolverhampton Art Gallery includes another 10 previously unseen shots that have been salvaged by scanning old sets of negatives for the Zulu Dawn Archive, the UK’s only official collection of Hip Hop photos kept at Dudley Archives.

The exhibition, which is called Afterlife, also has a section devoted to motion capture and animation.

Two years ago Mr Jones' charity, Hip Hop Heritage, used motion capture technology to record the B Boy dance moves of four 1980s dance stars of hip hop, now in their late 40s, yet who were still able to reproduce their signature moves.

Using one of the dancers’ motion capture files, Hip Hop Heritage has produced a film showing how the dancer was motion captured and animated, and how the animation can be used in teaching and for archiving all kinds of dance genres.

Mr Jones said: "Wolverhampton Artsfest and Vicon funded this exhibition, enabling the charity to commission the

animation of one dancer only to show the potential of using motion capture in the detailed analysis of movement

in 360 degrees, at high and low elevations, for teaching dance and archiving dance movement for posterity. Such techniques could then be applied to any dance genre."

*Afterlife opens at Wolverhampton Art Gallery on Thursday