Stephan Babuljak Photography » Higher Ed / Commercial / Editorial Photography

We had all just graduated from high school and seven of us decided to live in a three bedroom house together. Yeah, sounds like a recipe for disaster – but we were good kids, messy, but good. Most of us were going to school and working odd jobs but there was one of us who had a different path altogether. The local jr college wasn’t working out for him and, besides delivering pizzas, most jobs didn’t interest him either. He kept bringing home vinyl records, boxes of them, and always writing stuff down on yellow legal note pads. I remember when he brought home his first “sampler”. He had spent all he had on it and then some. We would tease him, “Get a real job, go to school!” But his mind was made up, the Grouch was born.

Fifteen years later, a very successful, self-produced, self-promoted, self-taught, underground hip-hop artist stood before me. With a wife and young child back at his home in Maui, another house in LA, dozens of CDs and a very strong fan-base, my soccer playing childhood friend had made a very successful career doing what he loves and was still going strong.

Shameful this was the first show I had seen and photographed of his. I had wanted to for years but had we lost touch and both moved around a lot. The music was great and the atmosphere energetic as the fans chanting along side him as he delivered lyric after lyric. It was a privilege to push my camera through the devoted fans and snap pics for a hour. But what no one could see was the huge proud grin across my face. This was inspiring, he had done it. He had a passion, worked very hard at it, and was going to continue doing so. Success was his destiny.

therealgrouch.com

All images copyright Steve Babuljak. Please do not repost or copy with direct permission from the photographer or artist.