Lupe Fiasco: Food & Liquor
Chicago-based Lupe Fiasco is being touted as the next big thing in hip hop. Chuck Anderson of nopattern designs this spaced out cover in his eclectic colourful style featuring a boombox, toys, a Nintendo DS and assorted goodies.
Some insight into the collaboration between artist, designer, and record label from The Brilliance:
The great thing about the cover in my opinion is where Chuck and Lupe took ‘it’ in the realm of hip-hop. They connected the dots from Pink Floyd, Head Porter, the Quran to Cartier glasses in one fell swoop. You don’t need to meet Lupe because everything you need to know about him is on that cover somewhere. Pay close attention to him in general because he’s putting on a lesson in creative control. Imagine having a one-way conversation with your record label and saying here’s my cover, lets use it to sell millions, and them be like O.K. Rarely happens.
mo-MAN:
This cover is awful.
It could have been saved if it not had small photoshopped objects floating around Lupe, and had a good choice of font with less glow placed in a better position. There are better ways to reflect all your interests than have them as material items floating around you.
# 20 Mar 08 at 9:47 am
cenzi:
I agree. its absolutely revolting. the commercialness of the product placement make me think that tis is a vile product for American greedy “want want want”‘s
# 15 May 08 at 11:21 am
Matt Z:
album cover sucks but the album itself is amazing, cmon theres tons of good albums with bad covers. and cenzi learn english before u start dissin America
# 20 May 08 at 6:15 am
J Sheehy:
Punctuation too.
# 26 Jun 08 at 7:40 am
LarsEfx:
So now you can’t have an oppinion on america, if you can’t write english perfectly? That’s lame.
# 30 Jun 08 at 9:03 pm
tuffghost:
isn’t it supposed to be hyperbolic? mr. fiasco is way into his anime and videogames, it seemed to me like he was trying to emulate that over-the-top vibe. i mean, he’s holding a goddamn katana on the back! its all kitsch.
i thought it was pretty funny.
# 13 Aug 08 at 10:52 am
to the negative:
some of people are simply ignorant. please do a little research about an artist and the graphic designers that are responsible for creating great pieces of art before commenting on any album design.
# 29 Sep 08 at 12:50 pm
Chuck:
@ to the negative,
If you have to research the artist and graphic designers in order to appreciate a “great piece of art,” I would question how great that art really is.
# 27 Oct 08 at 7:10 am
Clare:
I agree with LarsEfx. Knowing english has nothing to do with having an opinion on America.
I dont think It’s a “revolting” album cover though. It’s not great, but it’s not terrible. Nothing special. It’s just blah.
Bad type though.
# 27 Oct 08 at 11:23 pm
cenzi:
If you REALLY want to get specific, why don’t you learn Dakota? Or Blackfoot? if you live in America. Land thieves.
Second, the visuals tell a story, and if the story is not correctly comprehended, then, as Chuck has already said, the fault falls on the marketing team. And note that I said team and not just the graphic artist, who I follow regularly and admire very much. But I guess he just fell on this one, I and will help him out by laying blame on the record company, the marketing team and Lup himself, as well as Chuck.
I wonder how many of you are actually hiphop heads and have “studied” hiphop… or are you all more interested in the “graphics”???
# 29 Nov 08 at 4:56 am
ceasebreath:
I think the work is dope and think that Chuck Anderson did a wicked job on the cover, when it was released 3 years ago.
Commercial or non-commercial, It’s just imagery that is targeted to a certain audience, and maybe it’s not for everyone but those who understand or appreciate to it, have a relationship with it.
# 01 May 09 at 4:17 am
LMXV:
Like usual, hip hop and materialism.
# 26 Aug 09 at 8:16 pm
Father:
This already looks incredibly dated. About as iconic as default Photoshop outer glow.
# 11 Jul 10 at 9:50 am
iamjcollins:
As much as I like the album, the art work makes me think Lupe's about to say “and you could win all these great prizes if you answer this question correctly!”
# 16 Jul 10 at 12:03 am
mrtruffle:
hehe where do I enter the prize draw!
# 16 Jul 10 at 10:17 am