The other night I was hanging out with a bunch of fashion kids over on North 8th in Manhattan, the kind of crowd where everyone looks like they got dressed in the dark inside a very expensive closet, when a black SUV pulled up to the curb. The door opened and Michael K. Williams stepped out.
He was wearing a blazer over a Dries Van Noten SS16 button-down, which I only really clocked properly later. At the time it just registered as Michael somehow looking completely at home arriving at a fashion party while I was standing there dressed like somebody who had been sent to document a warehouse fire for the evening news.
I did what I usually did back then when something interesting suddenly appeared in front of me. I lifted the camera and took the photo.
Immediately afterward I started making small talk, partly because I wanted to talk to him and partly because I had just fired a flash directly into his face and figured conversation might make the whole thing seem slightly less deranged. Nothing crazy. Just enough to turn the moment from stranger-with-camera into two people standing on a sidewalk.
After a minute he asked if I was going up to the roof for the party.
I wasn't.
"Do you mind if I go up with you?"
He said sure.
So suddenly I'm following him upstairs to a rooftop party I wasn't invited to. By the time we got up there I realized I was underdressed by about a mile. Apparently a photo vest and all black was not the uniform for whatever was happening on this roof. He pointed out that the bar was open if I wanted anything. I told him I didn't drink.
At some point he asked my name again.
I replied "Brian."
His face lit up a little. He said his dance partner's name was Brian too.
"Oh yeah?"
He Said: "Yeah, a tall dark dreadheaded nigga from Queens."
I looked at him and said, "Yeah, so were basically the same person." with a smirk
He laughed.
That was probably the moment I stopped feeling like I had accidentally snuck into somebody else's evening. We started talking about music, he was into a lot of house and dance music, Records made for rooms where people actually moved instead of standing around trying to look like they weren't impressed by anything.
I told him I didn't really listen to a lot of conventional dance music or house. I grew up mostly on experimental music and screaming music, so when dance music did get through to me it was usually the stranger ends of it. Acid House. Aphex Twin bending something recognizable until it wasnt
Michael told me that if I wanted somewhere to start, I should listen to MFSB's "Love Is the Message."
We kept talking for a while longer. Meanwhile there was a woman from HBO over my shoulder who had apparently been trying to get his attention for what felt like twenty minutes. Eventually he said he had to go talk to her or the hovering would never stop.
Before he disappeared into the party I asked if I could make one quick portrait. Michael leaned back against the rooftop banister. Nothing crazy just my little Leica and a flash.
