Hip-Hop Sgt. Pepper's - The Cover Art

Here is the cover art for my mix of The 20 Greatest Hip-Hop Albums Of All-Time. My post on April 19th contains the liner notes for this mix.

It’s important to note that this artwork was created for a friends-and-family mix only and is NOT for sale in any form. I’m not profiting off of this art in any way and it is completely a labor of love. Please see below for my notes about the making of this image.

Here’s the front cover:

For comparison:

And here’s the insert:

Compare and contrast:

Front cover gatefold:

The OG:

Inside gatefold with a ‘who’s who’:

Who’s Who (& What’s What) on the cover:

1 – James Brown
2 – Jack Johnson
3 – Booker T. Washington
4 – Richard Pryor
5 – Julius Erving (aka Dr. J)
6 – Bruce Lee
7 – Gil Scott Heron
8 – Miles Davis
9 – Langston Hughes
10 – George Clinton
11 – Malcolm X
12 – Martin Luther King, Jr. (painted over by gangsta rappers)
13 – Al Pacino (as Tony Montana)
14 – Robert Beck (aka Iceberg Slim)
15 – Eldridge Cleaver
16 – Lovebug Starski
17 – Mr. Magic
18 – Slick Rick
19 – Kool Moe Dee
20 – Grand Wizard Theodore
21 – Too $hort
22 – Grandmaster Caz
23 – Q-Tip (A Tribe Called Quest)
24 – Spoonie Gee
25 – LL Cool J
26 – Kurtis Blow
27 – DJ Charlie Chase (Cold Crush Brothers)
28 – Master Gee (Sugar Hill Gang)
29 – Big Bank Hank (Sugar Hill Gang)
30 – Wonder Mike (Sugar Hill Gang)
31 – Biz Markie
32 – Busy Bee
33 – Afrika Bambaataa
34 – Ice-T
35 – Rick Rubin
36 – Russell Simmons
37 – Rakim Allah (Eric B. & Rakim)
38 – Fab Five Freddy
39 – Flavor Flav (Public Enemy)
40 – Chuck D. (Public Enemy)
41 – Old Dirty Bastard (Wu Tang Clan)
42 – Method Man (Wu Tang Clan)
43 – Andre ’3000′ Benjamin (Outkast)
44 – Antwan ‘Big Boi’ Patton (Outkast)
45 – Sir Mix-A-Lot
46 – Jay-Z
47 – Afrika Baby Bam (Jungle Brothers)
48 – Kanye West
49 – Tupac Shakur
50 – Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls)
51 – Erick Sermon (EPMD)
52 – B Real (Cypress Hill)
53 – Snoop Doggy Dogg
54 – Dr. Dre
55 – Ice Cube
56 – Easy E.
57 – Adam Yauch (Beastie Boys)
58 – Adam Horowitz (Beastie Boys)
59 – Mike Diamond (Beastie Boys)
60 – Cee-Lo Green
61 – Muhammad Ali
62 – Josh Davis (aka DJ Shadow)
63 – dk (Getting hyphy at age 5)
64 – Raymond ‘Boots’ Riley (The Coup)
65 – 50 Cent
66 – Daryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels (Run-DMC)
67 – Jason ‘Jam Master Jay’ Mizell (Run-DMC)
68 – Joseph ‘DJ Run’ Simmons (Run-DMC)
69 – dk
70 – (obscured) DJ Q-bert
71 – Eminem
72 – Lyrics Born
73 – Prince Paul
74 – Timbaland
75 – Kid Creole (Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five)
76 – Grandmaster Flash
77 – Scorpio (Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five)
78 – Melle Mel (Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five)
79 – Joseph ‘Run’ Simmons (Run-DMC)
80 – Jason ‘Jam Master Jay’ Mizell (Run-DMC)
81 – Daryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels (Run-DMC)
82 – Empire State Building (for scale)
83 – Nas
84 – Marion ‘Suge’ Knight
85 – Lil’ Kim
86 – Sonny Liston
87 – Masta Blasta (‘Homies’ figurine)
88 – James Brown ‘Sex Machine’ LP
89 – Incredible Bongo Band ‘Bongo Rock’ LP
90 – Hennessy
91 – DJ Kool Herc (The original DJ)
92 – Boombox
93 – Ice Cold (‘Homies’ figurine)
94 – Missy Elliott
95 – Wilson basketball
96 – Purple Erkel (ganja)
97 – Microphone
98 – Discman with headphones
99 – Handgun
100 – Sub Pop Bionic (‘Homies’ figurine)

I’m sensing a trend:

Back:

And here are the notes about the making of the cover:

A Few Words About The Cover Art

“If I had a million dollars, I’d do a hip-hop version of the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s.” Those were the words that launched me on the way to creating the album cover you hold in your hands (thankfully, it ended up costing exponentially less than that). After saying the above out loud, I took a few days to think about how it might be done. Then I meditated on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s, and pulled apart each detail in my mind to figure out how I could put it back together. It ended up being the coolest jigsaw puzzle I’ve ever assembled.

When I first thought this up, I was convinced that somebody, somewhere had done it, and I would easily find ten different versions of it on the Internet. I’m still thinking that somebody has done this (surely it can’t be left to a white boy copywriter from Oregon to pull this off), but I can’t find it out there on the Imagination Superhighway, so I did a DIY thing (to the F-ing max, if I do say so) and made it happen. I kept waiting for the big hurdle that I wouldn’t be able to get over, but it never showed itself.

BIG CAVEAT here: I was pretty slow at work for most of January, so I basically had 8 hours a day (give or, usually, take) and access to a Canon color fiery. Also, I’ve got mad collage skillz (my grandmas would be so proud), so the most daunting part of the cover (the top third, with all the heads), was pretty much a piece of cake. I got really good at cutting out little heads. Some of my co-workers accused me of taking up origami. Little did they know…

This project was a fantastic learning experience for me, and I could never have even come close to figuring out who might deserve to be on something like this without the writings of Jeff Chang, Nelson George, and countless others. Also, until Ronny Knight and Mark Adams took the picture, this thing was a 3D piece of art (and yes, less than 1% of this was done in Photoshop) that wouldn’t have fit in a jewel case. Ronny’s an amazing shooter, and I was lucky to have someone like him to lean on. Anthony Landgraf generously helped with the post-production work on the photo, as well as the graffiti lettering in the center of the photo. John Reid created the drawing for the key on the inside. In other words, this was not a solo project.

My wife has offered a lot of thoughtful critique while no doubt simultaneously making arrangements with the local mental health authorities. Also, those breathtakingly cute little flower shapes that embellish the lower half of the cover were her handiwork. Most spouses would have shot an idea like this down in about 10 seconds. My amazing wife not only supported me the whole way through the process, she played a large part in making it happen.

There were many happy accidents that occurred while I was putting this puzzle together. I never imagined I’d ever think something like “Kurtis Blow and Marilyn Monroe have the same hair!” – but there you have it. Also, covering Sonny Liston (the only black person by my count on the original cover) with a cutout of Ali flooring Liston felt pretty damned good. Richard Pryor fit snugly over Lenny Bruce’s original spot, in more ways than one. Ice-T’s cop hat grazing Scarface and Iceberg Slim (the man who inspired Ice-T’s name) was also a nice touch. Jay-Z’s oversized head, Andre 3000’s cowboy hat, Erick Sermon’s peace sign, George Clinton’s red hat, Prince Paul/Marlene Deitrich’s sneer… there are tons of other little coincidences like this, and I invite you to find them all for yourself.

I would never in a million years have considered putting myself in something like this, until I read about the making of the original Sgt. Pepper’s cover and discovered that designer Peter Blake included 4 dressmaker’s dummies in the photo cover shoot. In this version, I play the part of the dummies.

There were, of course, lots of really significant artists I had to leave out – my apologies to all of them. It would take ten times the amount of space I had to make room for everyone that has contributed to the vibrancy of the genre. I tried to be as representative as possible, and I structured the collage so it flows from influences (top row) through old school, the golden age, and into the new school (whatever that means). In other words, I tried to create a visual schematic of the history of hip-hop.

I love the Beatles, but the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s is oppressively lily white. The thing I most love about this idea is that it flips the script on the original color scheme, while providing a perfect framework to honor the people that have made hip-hop a worldwide institution. What I’ve done here is akin to visual sampling – taking little pieces of some other reality and working them together to form a whole new context.

Not unlike the work of a lot of the little heads on the front of this album. My deepest respect and appreciation to each of them.

dk

“There’s 3 of us/But we’re not the Beatles” – Run-DMC

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Tags: cover art, Hip-Hop, Mixes, Run-DMC, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles