Sketched this up for the new Caricature thread I started on the Drawing Board.
Check out the thread for other takes on The Doggfather.
Also, I'm in the process of turning this blog into an all-inclusive art blog that will showcase all the stuff I do, not just hip hop stuff. My other blog is lost in limbo so we'll just have to take the party over here. Chucch.
"Back in the days when I was a teenager
Before I had status and before I had a pager
You could find the Abstract listening to hip hop.
My Pops used to say it reminded him of be-bop."
I saw Q-Tip on VH-1's Hip Hop Honors and was inspired.
Go download Common's I Used To Love H.E.R. and fall in love with hip hop again.
I used some interesting photographs I took in San Luis Obispo on my honeymoon. (Yes, I got married. To a gorgeous girl who thinks Common's cute.)
Right-click-view the image to see the whole thing (or whatever the Mac equivalent of that is.)
I don't remember when or how ended up buying Mos Def and Talib Kweli's Black Star album, but it was definitely altered what I was listening to. At first, Kweli seemed like a capable emcee whom I had to sit through in order to hear Mos Def rap. But soon, I grew to appreciate the content of his rhymes and his skill on the mic.
These days, I'm listening to Kweli more than I am to Mos Def (until Mos gets all that sub-par rock music out of his system).
So here's Talib Kweli, in a bit of a simpler style than usual.
I actually drew this twice. The first time, just as I was putting down the finishing touches, the power went out in my apartment. Four minutes later, it was on again. But the piece I had been working on was gone forever. There's something to be said about good ol' pencil and paper.
Prince Paul was basically a member of De La Soul for the first few albums and was responsible for their groundbreaking sound and album structure. Just when hip hop was
taking itself a little too seriously, the instant classic 3 Feet High And Rising exploded on an unsuspecting hip hop public with innovative samples, the first instances of "skits" in between songs (now a rap album staple), humor, and lyrics that favored flowers over guns.
I sketched this drawing a few years ago, probably while compositing something for some bad tv sitcom. I think the image was from the cover of Paul's Politics of the Business. Anyway, here's the sketch:
...which I decided to revisit in Photoshop:
I'm looking forward to Paul's Baby Elephant project.
Have a good weekend, kids. I'll be on the set of Ugly Betty today, pointing and sounding important. Wish me luck.
Arguably the greatest emcee of all time and certainly the most influential. Rakim.
Based on that somewhat bizarre Sean John ad. (Hell, I don't know if it's bizarre. Rakim needs his fish.)
Doctor Dre, architect of west coast gangsta-funk.
Maybe Detox will actually come out some time in the next decade.
