From Drake’s “Nothing Was The Same” to Kanye’s “MBDTF”: The Artists Behind The Covers Posted by Lucas G. on 08/22/13 | Filed under Opinion, Drake, Art

Whether or not its fair, or the right way to go about it, albums often get selected based on the cover art. I know whenever I go to the record store or peruse bandcamp, I often check out the albums whose cover art really jumps out at me. For bigger artists, it doesn’t matter as much. Like for say oh, I don’t know, Drake; he could put a picture of a turd on the cover and it would still sell like hotcakes.

Well, as it just so happened Drake released the album art for Nothing Was The Same (and pushed the release date back a week), but don’t worry, it is dookie free. They are actually visually intriguing and like a few other emcees, Drake recruited an artist to do them. We often get so focused on the art itself we don’t ever consider who is behind them. That ends now, RefinedHype Nation!



I’m not sure why these are getting hated on so much, I guess because it’s Drake. I’ll never understand why, no matter what he does, everyone will immediately hate it. I’m not a Drake fan myself, but I don’t hate him with the passion of thousand suns like the whole world seems to; but I digress. Anyway the regular version (baby Drake) and the deluxe (big boy Drake) were both done by artist Kadir Nelson, whose style is very cool. Evidenced on Nothing Was The Same Art, Nelson takes a portrait or scene and gives it a vibrant, rich, and cartoonish (in the most professional way possible) makeover and the colors really pop. While you might not know his name, I am willing to be you have seen some of his other work. His most famous piece was definitely the art he did Michael Jackson’s posthumous album, Jackson, but that only scratches the surface.

In addition to doing a series of stamps, Nelson also did the artwork for the first two NFL Street games. One of the cooler, interesting pieces I saw from him was ad for SKYY Vodka. The rich, colorful painting has a hip-hop-esque vibe to it and I know its an ad, but, dammit, this is dope as shit. Anyway, Kadir has much more art available on his website—like a dope portrait of the pitcher, Randy Johnson or one for And1 of the street ballers—and his collection is modern, yet very diverse. There is a wide range of projects and subjects and it is definitely worth a look.





Unless you are an art buff, you probably haven’t heard of George Condo; I know I hadn’t. Hwoever, if you were to stroll into a museum and see some of his works, I have no doubt in my mind that you would know what album he did the artwork for. My favorite artists are the ones who are unconventional and do some crazy, often dark or weird pworks (like Goya) and Condo is definitely one of them. Condo reminds me a little of a modern Picasso in his style. He takes what would be normal portraits of people, but really messes with facial structure to make it something totally unique and new and a little bit dark.







If you did guess already (that last one should have really tipped you off), Condo is the man behind Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy art as well as the art for singles like “Power” and “Runaway”. Looks like Kanye beat Hov the hip-hop meets art shtick, and, if you ask me, I like Kanye’s version much better,





You don’t have to be a Drake or Kanye in the game to get some cool artwork. Take Big K.R.I.T while he isn’t a major-label artist, the man knows a thing or two about selecting album art. Krizzle has some of the best album art in the game; 4 E 4eva N A Day is one of my all time favorite album covers. While K.R.I.T Wuz Here was a little more minimalist than hes other covers, it was still pretty cool. In fact, I just got it on vinyl and it looks really cool when not on the computer;; even the way the tracklisting is done is interesting. The man behind the K.R.I.T Wuz Here art is Gabriel Eng-Goetz, who is no stranger to doing album covers. While you might think his style is simple he does some pretty wild shit. Check out some of it below, and you can find more on his website.







The music comes first but, if you don’t present it in the right way it really doesn’t matter because people wont listen. I’m not saying every successful album has dope cover art, but it certainly helps. As a (recording) artist it helps tie everything together and shows the audience that you care about every detail of your work. Like MDTF it also sets off the vibe or aura of the album as a whole. We often get so focused on the artist when it comes to the artwork, but they rarely, if ever are responsible for the work. It’s a shame the artists behind the great album covers don’t get as much credit as the deserve; just something to keep in mind when you look at album art.

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