Buddy Esquire

Buddy Esquire, “The King of the Hip-Hop Flyer,” heralded the shows of hip-hop’s earliest pioneers with handbills painstakingly made with Prestype letters, photo offset and the cut-and-paste method, all under the gun of last-minute block parties and ever-moving jams. Esquire started as a graffiti writer named ESQ and made his first flyers for a block party in 1977, going on to make more than 300 through the ’80s. Due to their ephemeral nature, flyers today are considered the most elusive of hip-hop artifacts. Esquire passed away in 2014.