It’s supporting an artist so they get the most out of the project. I pride myself in collaborating and being a creative director, and creative direction isn’t putting my opinion first. He comes to creative from a whole different place. You can only visualize it in the very last second and usually the label is like, “It’s due.” You can look at Lil Uzi and know he has a strong opinion about his aesthetic. Imagine the hours of anticipation for this album. Was there any hesitation from him about putting the Off-White™ tape so front-and-center on the cover? His cover sort of embodies our short careers, and it’s two people coming together from a long time ago. I think that in a digital age, album covers are becoming a lost art. It was his idea to wrap his album package in a physical way. I haven’t done an album cover in what feels like six years. The same way the Nike shoes - you look at them and you can almost feel like you can do it yourself or you can see the handmade feel in it. You feel like you can peel it off, and that was important to me. That cover is pretty much a readymade example. That way a whole generation of kids will see themselves in the work, and do the work themselves too. One of the pillars of my design aesthetic is showing the process. I’m at a point in my career where I’m interested in seeing the consistency across different projects. The cover reminds me of your work with brands - making Off-White™ exist right next to the thing we know already. That Off-White™ tape is an additive to the content and it’s emblematic of just how we think He believes in me and I believe in him and it’s us doing this crash of things that are in our own head. These covers are a prequel to in-depth creative back-and-forth using all of our different assets. It’s my return to directing videos again. It’s a video that will come out soon, but it’s shot over three countries, over three months. Unbeknownst to anyone, I directed the video for “XO Tour Llif3” over the last three months.
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Uzi hit me up and was like, I need you to creative direct my project in the final hours. Obviously I’ve done a bunch in the past and I’ve recently been focusing on developing things outside of music, but I’ve always been feeling about getting back into it. Now I’ve made a conscious effort to get back into doing music projects.
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Whether we were in conversation or not, we just kept reconnecting and it’s literally like effortless. He’s been cool since that moment and he’s had an appreciation for how we met. Rapping in his style comes naturally to him, and he’s just been a genuine dude. He’s devoid of too many references, he’s in his own world. There’s always a new genre, and we’ve seen obviously rap evolve to what it is now, and we’ve seen different influences have their evolution on artists.
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How did you get to working on his album cover? Rituals in her name in Venezuela are a mix of indigenous, Afro-American, and Catholic religious traditions, and have extended to Colombia, Panama, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Central America.During the interview, the designer/creative/DJ broke down the design on the cover and even shared a story about the first time he met Lil Uzi Vert at an abandoned artist loft party called “Hamster Dance” saying “What the fuck? This kid is next level.” Check out a few excerpts from the piece below. Followers of Maria Lionza, an indigenous woman who according to tradition was born on Sorte Mountain, make the annual pilgrimage to ask for her help or give thanks. Pictured above: Cult followers of Maria Lionza perform rituals during their annual gathering at Sorte Mountain, about 300 km (186 miles) west of Caracas, Venezuela, early Thursday, Oct. Rick Bowmer/AP Show More Show Less 29 of32 Ritual activitesĬult members are encouraged to be mainly preoccupied by the organization's activities. Pictured above: Two entrepreneurs, Stacey Boiles, 26, left, and Jane Lupfer, 28, both of Waco, Texas, set up shop with their Branch Davidian cult T-shirts near the cult's compound in Waco on Friday, March 20, 1993. Cults encourage its members to raise money for the organization.