Week #48 ('20) Art Appreciation

Welcome to my weekly Art Appreciation post, where I provide a list of some amazing album covers, single art, and random art that have come out within the past week. I’ll give you the artist/photographer/painter/magician’s name, as well as any social media or websites where you can go and check out more of their work. Click here to go back and see some other Art Appreciation posts.

——————————

It’s bound to happen every once in a while in these Art Appreciation posts I have going on here: there will be some weeks where Manuel, known as “Cep”, Concepcion will run this category like Kendrick should at the Grammys. His mastery of traditional art elements (painting and illustration), as well as more digitized elements, lend him a spread of skills that allows him to run the underground hip-hop market, with few competitors that can operate on his level. While I may not highlight his work every week, it’s a safe bet that Cep has work coming out in one form or the other every single week, making his art something that I identify intrinsically with artists like Flee Lord, 38 Spesh, Planet Asia, Elcamino, Ransom, and so many more talented rappers in the game, who have latched on to his epic stylings to give us the starting visuals for many albums over these past few years. The artistic spectrum that Cep occupies is on full display in both of these pieces I have to show you below. Thank you for everything you do for the culture Cep.

Remember, use this post to follow and subscribe to these artists; they deserve as much recognition as the musicians they are attached to.

Artist(s): Manuel “Cep” Concepcion

No More Humble Fashion, by Flee Lord

Whenever it comes to Flee Lord, there is a relationship with Cep that goes back quite a ways, including iconic covers like both Loyalty & Trust tapes, both RocAmerikka projects, and The People’s Champ. The majority of their work together has centered around two key elements: skulls and a third eye, really bringing the “DEATH” in the Loyalty Or Death mantra that Flee has been preaching since he came in the game into the forefront. These elements make their appearance here again, but instead of a face or a literal skeleton, we get the skull (with the three eyes of course) superimposed on a chess piece, specifically the king piece (because why would it be anything else?), giving the idea new life in the large and imposing figure, blood red contrasted starkly against the white background. That’s something unique in Cep’s portfolio (or at least what I’ve seen of it): he’s usually sticking to the blues/reds/purples as a base color from which everything else builds from, but this time he goes for a plain white background, with only the chess piece and the black tiles of the chessboard cutting through the clean canvas. There have been others, like Eto’s Eto Brigante, that have pulled off similar aesthetics, but I’ve got to give credit to Cep here for creating something so substantial with few actual elements, both compositionally and in color palette. After 11 projects so far this year, you could consider this project Flee’s checkmate to the rap game: next month, his 12th and last for 2020, will just be overkill.

Cep's Instagram/Cep's Website

——————————————————

Artist(s): Manuel “Cep” Concepcion

Sacred Psalms, by Elcamino & 38 Spesh

Alright so I’m not sure if this is a painting that Cep has manipulated and edited here (I’m leaning towards yes as it seems like something older in nature), but what he has done with this shit is just immaculate. I mean just compare it to the first piece we looked at: this painting is fluid and slushing around with colors and splotches, with reds, yellows, and greens painted on in delicate yet rushed strokes. The darkness of what seems to be the original painting (which looks like a Goya piece to my eye, an exaggerated and gothic darkness over any sort of realism) is offset by the little flourishes that Cep paints over the top: the golden crown, the white over the eyes, the small pool of hues off to the right side, and a micro-crown painted above who I can only assume to be Jesus’ forehead bring the painting into maybe more of a springtime theme? I would stick by that point, but then you look up at the top to the creeping red, blood maybe, seeping down into the portrait eerily. I’m loving all of the small elements at play here in this piece, masterfully constructed and challenging to look at, but also thematically appropriate for an album titled Sacred Psalms.

Cep's Instagram/Cep's Website

——————————————————