In the early Nineties I was a freelance artist for a good three years with my work already published in a variety of well known magazines.
Building my creative reputation I encountered a fledgling magazine called, The Source in 1990 and was asked to provide an illustration for their upcoming September 1990 issue. The following month I was called in to provide another illustration for the next issue and the calls continued monthly and didn’t stop for a full 16 years… All of the work listed below was created in the nineties and for The Source Magazine except for the Flavor Claus illustration which was created for Def-Jam.
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This is one of my favorite Black and white pieces as I was happy with the overall illustration including likeness, detail and the visual joke.
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Trying to capture the silliness and fun that was Kid ‘n’ Play, I wanted to make sure that the illustration captured their true essence. I think I succeeded.
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It was the invasion of Hollywood by M.C’s acting on television and making movies. At the time the movie, “Three Men and a Baby” was a box office smash. My way of representing M.C’s raiding Hollywood was to spoof the movie poster of “Three Men and a Baby” utilizing a few of those M.C’s who were in the process of adding “actor” to their resumes.
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During this time period of Hip-Hop, KRS-ONE the teacher was battling any and everyone lyrically and winning triumphantly. The idea was to just show that fact visually.
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This for me is one of my classic Last Words. It’s self explanatory in its words and visuals. RedMan was always making faces in just about every picture or video that I saw of him at the time. Looking back every kid can remember their mother or some elder telling them as a child, that if they kept making faces, their face was going to stay that way…
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As a duo DAS-EFX made a point of stating that they were from the underground and that they were straight from the sewer… I took the opportunity to merge another hot crew at the time who were also synonymous with being from the sewer and deep seeded in the underground as well. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles merged with Das-EFX utilizing the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie poster. Overall this piece is one of my favorite Last Word illustrations.
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Slipping into their dual personas, I decided that “The Chocolate Boy Wonder” and “The Caramel King” with their Herculean musical gifts to Hip-Hop at the time should be forever captured in Super-Hero form as their music bounced, bounded and saved the world from Whack M.C’s…
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At the time of this illustration Jay-Z was hot, but he was still building on his overall world-wide notoriety. I wanted to capture how I felt his career was going by meshing him with a standard in New York. During the Holidays all eyes of the world are fixed and focused on Rockefeller Center, the tree and the skating rink, Jay-Z in my mind then was bound to become a New York and global fixture and the center of attention. I felt then and still feel now that the idea and the illustration conveyed my initial concept completely.
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Another one of my complete favorites. I wanted to make a political statement at the time of the way Slick Rick was being treated by the courts and the authorities. The illustration works completely in the capturing of likeness, concept and execution of the visuals.
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Plain and simple… Def-Jam wanted artwork for their invite for their upcoming Christmas party. The end result, “Flavor Claus”.
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Andre LeRoy Davis