Anyone who follows any two of Kanye West blog’s has seen Nabil’s work. I myself am a heavy Kanye West fan (side from his egotistical genius) and admire his creativity. 

Nabil Elderkin is the mastermind behind Kanye’s video “Welcome to Heartbreak” , “Coldest Winter” , and a very beautiful video promoting the Glow in the Dark Book documenting his successful international and US Tour. His images are amazing – his video work takes you back and makes you want to crawl into the screen . He recently updated his website with a few more images for his portfolio. Hes shot artists like John Legend, Cee-Lo , Kid Cudi , Common , Q-Tip , Nas and Damian Marley , and Snoop Dogg. I found this interesting interview he did with Vibe which explained how he got involved with Kanye and his whole movement. Imagine being given the opportunity to tour with Kanye West and go around the world. definitely a good look . Check out his website too – I promise you its worth your time.  

VIBE: When did you first link up with Kanye?
Nabil Elderkin: I linked up with Kanye way back when I heard his [2003] Akademiks mixtape, Jeanius Level Musik. It just had come out. I really liked the music and what he was saying. I started searching online for him and looked up kanyewest.com and there wasn’t one. I was like, “Oh, shit.” And I bought it. I got a call a couple of months later from Roc-a-Fella saying that they just signed this guy, Kanye West, and that they wanted the domain name and asked me what I wanted for it. I wasn’t trying to do anything with it, so I was like, “Yeah, you guys can have it. No problem.” They were like, “That’s it? What can we do for you?” I said I’d like to take pictures of him. They set up the shoot. I shot him in Chicago. And that ended up being his first press shoot. We bonded and I ended up shooting him around town at shows and became friends. 

How’d you get involved with shooting this tour? I assume that as a photographer and video director, your schedule is pretty packed.
Don, Kanye’s manager, hit me up like, “Yo, Kanye wants you to come out on tour with him.” I was like, “Cool.” Everything that I do with photography, my goal is to travel. I didn’t do the whole tour, probably about 10 to 15 shows. From the first tour [in Europe], to the revamp of it in [North America]. 

 

Read More for his astonishing images and some videos of Nabil’s work.