I Drew the To Pimp a Butterfly Cover

Sup friends, I’m popping back in from my mini hiatus to dedicate a post to a recently finished project that I’m very proud of. 🙂

Back in July of 2018, I started an 18 x 18 in. drawing of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly cover for the album released in 2015. It was entirely prompted by my brother Andre (who put me onto Kendrick in the first place way back when) randomly suggesting that I draw the cover one day, after telling him that I hadn’t drawn in a minute and wasn’t sure what to come back with. When he posed the idea, I was like nah, fuck that, the image is way too detailed and I could never do it justice. Plus, it’d take an insane amount of time to recreate (and I was right lmao). Honestly though, the idea got stuck in my head and I couldn’t think of anything else to make for a while after we talked about it, so I went for it.

The only serious drawing class I’ve ever taken was Drawing I my sophomore year of college, and I definitely realized there that I was a big fan of drawing faces, specifically looking at references and rendering them on paper using pencil (and sometimes charcoal). I originally didn’t think I’d be ambitious enough to take on the To Pimp cover, since I’ve never done anything nearly as intricate before. Nonetheless, I started off small and thought I’d see where it goes. I’m always super interested in progress pictures because you get to see an artists’ starting point and evolutionary process on a piece, so I figured I’d share a few of mine. The beginnings were super rough, not gonna lie, and made me question why I was attempting this at all, but once I gradually began filling in the outlines, it started to come together, slowly but surely.

Why this album cover? Well, like I said, it was suggested by my brother, but coincidentally, To Pimp a Butterfly was the first rap album I’d ever really listened to since I started seriously getting into music back in high school. My first time hearing it was actually in 2016, the year in which I started growing out from my strictly indie rock and pop palette to include hip hop. My brother suggested that Kendrick be my starting point after how game-changing To Pimp was when it came out. I took him up on this advice, got so obsessed with the record after listening a few times, and lo and behold — at age 17, my interest in hip hop was finally piqued. I was enamored with Kendrick’s impeccable flow, the contemporary take on jazz and funk styles exhibited on every song, and floored by the powerful political statements on the album along with deep insight into Kendrick’s upbringing in Compton.

The cover itself is just so great; the composition and message of the image itself is brilliant and empowering all on its own, and it felt humbling to create a piece of art from an already outstanding work to begin with.

I also wanted to mention that I was lucky enough to get to show this piece at an open call show at Greenpoint Gallery in Brooklyn, NY last month. It was pretty surreal to see something I’d worked on for literally over a year hanging on the wall in a public space to be seen by a whole bunch of strangers. Seeing it amidst a crap ton of other insanely talented artists’ work gave my stomach the warmest feeling, and I feel so unbelievably fortunate to have the privilege and opportunities to get my work out there, too. Drawing is still a hobby and foundation for passion projects right now, but this experience definitely inspired me to want to take it at least a bit more seriously, and maybe look into doing commission work for people in the future! This piece, though, will probably end up living on the walls of my room for as long as I can see, since I’m way too sentimental and attached to things I make to part ways with it. 😅

As far as music listening goes, I’ve listened to so much stuff since my last few posts, but I haven’t had any time to write about much due to this semester being pure hell. Trust though that a few things are in the works right now since I’m coming up on a little breathing room at the moment (bless the mf holidays), so look out for those coming soon. ❤