Remembering a Hip-Hop Harbinger in the Bronx

Todd Heisler/The New York Times Visitors signed the guest book at a wake for Lemoin Thompson III, a.k.a. Buddy Esquire.

via Boo-Hooray Gallery From 1977 to 1982, Lemoin Thompson III handcrafted some 300 hip-hop party handbills in his scruffy one-bedroom apartment.

On a recent Friday night, in a funeral home on the corner of East 165th Street and Prospect Avenue in the Bronx, some hip-hop pioneers gathered.

The occasion: the wake of Lemoin Thompson III, a.k.a. Buddy Esquire.

From 1977 to 1982, as the hip-hop genre began to emerge in parks, recreation centers and lounges like the long-gone Ecstasy Garage Disco, Mr. Thompson handcrafted some 300 hip-hop party handbills, on a small drawing board in a scruffy one-bedroom Bronx apartment.

Hence his nickname, the “Flyer King.”

On Jan. 31, Mr. Thomson set some chicken to boil in the kitchen of the apartment where he lived alone. He dozed off, and, overcome by the smoke billowing from the stove, died. He was 55.

Among those wandering in and out of the small funeral home were Afrika Bambaataa, the D.J.; Charlie Ahearn, the film director; and Theodore Livingston, better known as Grandwizzard Theodore, who is said to have invented scratching.

“A flier either made you want to tell everyone about the party, or not go at all,” said Mr. Livingston, 50, who huddled with former graffiti artists in the back of the funeral home, swapping stories about Mr. Thompson. In the spirit of hip-hop braggadocio, he shut down debate over whether Phase 2, Mr. Thompson’s competitor, may have been better. “Buddy. No question,” Mr. Livingston insisted.

Near the entrance, Martin Williams, 56, a comic book illustrator and close friend of Mr. Thompson’s, spoke of his fascination with comics and his foray into graffiti art, which he abandoned after a police chase in 1976 that forced Mr. Thompson to flee across the train tracks.

Mr. Thompson made his first flier for a block party in 1977, he recalled in a 2010 interview. He would go on to refine his self-described, “neo-deco” style, which drew on influences as varied as Art Deco movie theater facades, disco-era fonts and the work of the artist Vaughn Bodé.

“It’s absolutely masterful design,” Johan Kugelberg, 48, an archivist and friend, said of Mr. Thompson fliers, usually created a day before they were printed and distributed at bus stops, restaurants and high schools in the Bronx.

In 2011 Mr. Kugelberg realized that the fliers, which detailed who was performing, and where and when, could be seen as a crucial piece of hip-hop history. He purchased Mr. Thompson’s personal archive after learning that Mr. Thompson, a U.P.S. driver until his death, could no longer afford to store the materials.

“In hip-hop, the ephemeral remains of the movement are almost solely in the memories of the pioneering participants,” said Mr. Kugelberg. “10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, really messes up your memory of events.”

Mr. Thompson’s trove of fliers add an important element to the historical record of early hip-hop, a period when little was documented. The works of the photographer Joe Conzo are one of the few exceptions.

Up until Mr. Thompson’s death, Mr. Kugelberg, who had previously donated a selection of Mr. Thompson’s fliers to be preserved in the Cornell Hip-Hop Collection in Ithaca, N.Y., had been working with Mr. Thompson on a book celebrating his life’s work, with exhibitions in New York and Tokyo lined up.

“It’s doubly sad now,” he said, noting that many pioneers go unrecognized, let alone unpaid, by what is now a multibillion dollar industry. “Buddy knew how great he was; he was aware that his artwork and influence would live on for a long, long time.”

via Cornell University Hip Hop Collection A flier designed by Buddy Esquire.

A version of this article appears in print on 02/10/2014, on page A16 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Remembering a Hip-Hop Harbinger.