Week #51 ('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.

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It’s that time of the week again, where I turn attention towards the men and women behind the amazing art pieces that musicians use to represent their bodies of work (or singles depending on the circumstances). I love giving these guys attention because, at least from what I’ve seen from the internet at large, these artists remain criminally underrated. I mean, how many of y’all think of an album, and the *first* thing that comes to mind is the cover? Well, there’s a reason for that, and I go over all of that and more in these Art Appreciation posts (also unofficially known as “Cep’s Portfolio”, since I essentially cover most of what he puts out). Strap in, and get ready to read about some ART.

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

Artist(s): Huey P.

Pharoah Chain, by The Musalini & Planet Asia

Right next to Cep, Huey P. is an artist that I have talked about frequently here on these art appreciation posts, operating in a very similar lane as Cep does: cut and pasted images from the historical and pop-culture lexicon, heavy symbolism, and usually incorporating the artist(s) themselves into the piece to transport them into another world or narrative. It’s actually fortunate that both Mus and Asia have similar styles to their rhymes and their personas, drawing heavily on the mysticism of the ancients (Mus through his image and Asia through his rhymes) whenever they go about creating their art, so by Huey P. focusing so heavily on the historical Egyptian angle he is easily able to kill two birds with one stone. Something that Huey has always been strong about is his bold use of color (and I mean that singularly because he usually has a color motif that dictates the entire piece), operating in strong reds and blues in the past. Huey has given gold the spotlight on this one, representing a sort of duality between The Musalini and Planet Asia: Mus is all about the flashiness, a players’ attitude at heart, so the gold is meant to be his material wealth, while Asia, having been in the game for longer than most cats, is drawing upon his wealth of knowledge, both of the hip-hop game and knowledge of self. That dichotomy between emcees is represented visually as well, with the sarcophagus headpiece that is front-and-center being split down the middle between Mus, whose face is literally adorned in gold, and Asia, who opts to go for the most powerful being in his cypher: himself. The shine of the headpiece is really what gets me, as well as that 100k Nefertiti chain that dangles around their necks. A stylistically striking and memorable piece from an artist who knows no other way of crafting, maintaining excellence in all his endeavors.

Huey's Instagram/Huey's Website (with some sick Pharoah Chain merchandise)

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Artist(s): Manuel “Cep” Concepcion

Crime Scenes, by Ransom & Nicholas Craven

This guy just really knows how to get to me man: Pulp Fiction is one of my favorite movies of all time. I know, I know, it’s a pretty predictable favorite movie given how universally revered it is, but really everything about that movie, from the dialogue to the bat-shit crazy way Tarantino approached the story is classic and deserved even more praise. So, for Cep to take one of the most iconic scenes in the movie and remix to include Ransom, making it into this cut-and-pasted scene of greatness, it feels like this shit was made for people like me. He takes two iconic shots, Jules icing “Flock of Seagulls” on the couch and both Jules and Vincent laying some of the holy vengeance on poor ol’ Brett there in the chair, revamping them in a highly-stylized comic book style, with the white borders on everything making the characters and the scene pop more than ever, blending the two shots together perfectly and in a face-forward manner to make the action come towards the viewer. I love how the shots he chose to recreate incorporate all members of the original scene and, much like his last piece that I covered, the reliance on white that makes the sparing colors he does use stand out even brighter, the muzzle-flashes and blood being key among them (the things that would make this area a “crime scene” if you will). If there’s a graphic novel commissioned to recreate Pulp Fiction, I’m voting for Cep to take the illustration helm, because I never knew before this piece right here that this was something I NEEDED.

Cep's Instagram/Cep's Website

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