Book of Hip-Hop Cover Art

Rating:
Summary: Roll up your sleeeves.
Review: You really know when a musical genre has arrived, when a book of cover artwork is published. Hip hop has been around for a couple of decades or more so Andrew Emery's colorful book is especially timely and can join the expanding shelf of titles devoted to great cover art.

As is usual with any book devoted to this marketing art there are plenty of the duds and forgettable designs but in the case of hip hop the very nature of the music produces some startling and vibrant graphics. Just turn over the first few pages and by page thirteen the socko 1983 album Wild Style jumps of the page, graffiti artist Zephyr created the beautiful lettering, page sixteen has a stunning 1984 Afrika Bambaataa cover based on a Marvel comic cover. The three hundred covers are arranged historically into ten chapters and the author writes about the various musicians and graphic artists who created so many of these covers, in particular George Dubose gets some good coverage.

I thought the chapter called Beat Biters was intriguing, as the music itself samples other sounds why not sample other covers as well, ten examples are shown including the 1991 cover from Young Black Strangers based on the 1963 'With the Beatles' album, a 1989 Tone Loc cover 'Loc'ed after Dark' was swiped from a 1963 Donald Byrd Blue Note LP designed by Reid Miles.

This book will interest graphic designers and fans of hip hop and all those who just want a record of the stuff they've missed.

Rating:
Summary: Roll up your sleeeves.
Review: You really know when a musical genre has arrived, when a book of cover artwork is published. Hip hop has been around for a couple of decades or more so Andrew Emery's colorful book is especially timely and can join the expanding shelf of titles devoted to great cover art.

As is usual with any book devoted to this marketing art there are plenty of the duds and forgettable designs but in the case of hip hop the very nature of the music produces some startling and vibrant graphics. Just turn over the first few pages and by page thirteen the socko 1983 album Wild Style jumps of the page, graffiti artist Zephyr created the beautiful lettering, page sixteen has a stunning 1984 Afrika Bambaataa cover based on a Marvel comic cover. The three hundred covers are arranged historically into ten chapters and the author writes about the various musicians and graphic artists who created so many of these covers, in particular George Dubose gets some good coverage.

I thought the chapter called Beat Biters was intriguing, as the music itself samples other sounds why not sample other covers as well, ten examples are shown including the 1991 cover from Young Black Strangers based on the 1963 'With the Beatles' album, a 1989 Tone Loc cover 'Loc'ed after Dark' was swiped from a 1963 Donald Byrd Blue Note LP designed by Reid Miles.

This book will interest graphic designers and fans of hip hop and all those who just want a record of the stuff they've missed.