Charlie Ahearn, best known as an American filmmaker was born in Binghamton, New York in 1951 and moved to New York City in 1973 to pursue his dreams in film and video art production and attended the Whitney Museum of American Art. Because of the endless opportunities New York City offered, Charlie Ahearn was able to be exposed to the films and arts community. Ahearn also brought his talents to the 10th Trinity Hip-Hop International festival.
Ahearn’s career as an artist started when he started making art films in downtown Manhattan, where he filmed a local youths practice martial arts. Ahearn also worked with Fred Braithwaite and Lee Quinones in 1980, and was able to film his biggest accomplishment, “Wild Style” in 1982.
Wild Style, a classic hip-hop feature film, it was inspired by a graffiti painting style of the same name. Wild Style means, “a style that is very symbolically described as an “energetic interlocking construction of letters with arrows and other that signify movement and direction”. Wild Style broke records by selling out for 3 weeks the film played. Fred Braithwaite and GrandwizardTheodore and Grandmaster Caz also played a huge role in Wild Style as they wrote lyrics and made music made from scratch. In an interview, “Fred 7 I gravitated toward the James Brown music, and I always say what if we went the other way, it would have been a totally different music”. The film is now known to be the most accurate portrait of hip hop culture and community.
In 2015, Ahearn attended the 10th Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival. Charlie Ahearn showed the audience his documentary/film, “Wild Style” throughout the day and was able to talk about the film. The film itself shows the audience how New York City was with hip hop and its culture and community.
After Wild Style, Ahearn wrote “Yes Yes, Y’all”, where it talks about the first decade of hip hop. Because of Ahearn and his accomplishments with his famous film, the hip hop music and culture was able to develop throughout the world.