A Cree Native American, he grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His photography of hip hop began in the 1970s with shots of graffiti in New York. The hip hop journalist Kevin Powell encouraged Paniccioli to make a book and in 2002, Who Shot Ya? : Three Decades of Hip-Hop Photography was published. Paniccioli's work has appeared in various magazines over a 30-year period, including: New York Times, Rolling Stone, Time and Entertainment Weekly.