When I was a little girl, I used to dream I was a princess...Being from Detroit, that was far from reality, but a little girl needs to dream and a little boy needs to truly believe he's a King on his throne in the midst of his ghetto surroundings...A New York based artist named Kehinde Wiley has made a hood star into a hood King and assumed the responsibility of making the impossible dream possible through the timeless medium of art...Wiley takes photographs of urban youth in their natural environment and invites them to pick a piece by a Renaissance artist that peaks their interests and then places them in those same ironically displaced environments...They are Kings in places where they don't seem fit, but at comfort in their own elements...The mood set is one of a time overdue, when young black men could claim the nobility that is flowing through their veins; when we were truly the Master of our own continent...for those in the D.C. area, this innovative vision can be seen (along with other work from various artists) during the "RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture" exhibition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery through October...You will be proud to see brothers presented with the valor they were originally meant to be viewed in... 
.FIN
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