33 Comments Thursday, February 19th, 2009
The 8 Best Hip Hop Album Covers
What happens when hip hop meets high art?
8. Graduation (2007) by Kanye West
Always artistically interesting, Kanye West commissioned renowned Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami to create the cover of his third LP, Graduation. Like Andy Warhol did for the Rolling Stones before him, Murakami stayed true to Kanye’s fetishes (teddy bears, the ’80s, school culture) while injecting his own trademark style of candy colored explosions and vibrant anime into the piece. The result? A mix of hip-hop and high art that proved rap music had come a long way since the days of No Limit album covers.
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33 Responses to “The 8 Best Hip Hop Album Covers”
02.20.09 at 3:35 pm
Steve says:
The Illmatic has da most meaning ouuta all of da covers but as far as art goes Graduation is the best cover
02.20.09 at 3:47 pm
bless says:
i definately agree with this one NWA and Nas definately deserved top homnors i can still remember buying Illmatic
02.20.09 at 6:14 pm
John JOnes says:
Wow, well done. You did pick some good ones! RT
www.anonymity.eu.tc
02.20.09 at 6:27 pm
bleh says:
wow, it doesn’t take much to impress around here.
02.20.09 at 6:45 pm
Ryan says:
You forgot Warren G’s Regulate http://cover6.cduniverse.com/MuzeAudioArt/Large/12/988512.jpg
02.20.09 at 6:45 pm
james dillinger says:
3 out of the 8 covers are good. this is the dumbest list ever. i think people are mistaking music for art in this case!
02.20.09 at 6:54 pm
softjunebreeze says:
Um. Since when is DMX covered in red paint and Bushwick Bill’s eye hanging out of his head considered “high art”?
02.20.09 at 6:56 pm
NanoRubio says:
Hip hop has been dead for a while. As this genre continues to regress it is sad that it reached out for the art world to bring it down with it.
02.20.09 at 7:11 pm
Maven says:
Just out of curiosity, does this site actually REQUIRE that everyone who posts to it types like a retard? “The Illmatic has da most meaning ouuta all of da covers”? Holy crap, are you TRYING to sound like a moron?
02.20.09 at 7:15 pm
Whitey McWhiterson says:
haha! further proof black people fail at life.
02.20.09 at 7:20 pm
Jon says:
No I will not click through every page. This should have been 4 pages, at most. Yes, I am lazy. Sue me.
02.20.09 at 7:33 pm
butt37 says:
i think kanye west has the best album cover
02.20.09 at 7:35 pm
shucks says:
Seriously? Where the hell is Paul’s Boutique? And Ill Communication for that matter…
02.20.09 at 7:59 pm
dave says:
hmmm seems like the picks are just arbitrary records the guy has in his stack.
Dr. Octagon cover by Pushead was pretty dope
To the 5 boroughs cover was pretty dope
02.20.09 at 8:57 pm
synappz says:
This list fails without OutKast - ATLiens.
02.20.09 at 9:05 pm
Ugh says:
I sure love having to click eight times to see a bunch of tiny pictures and almost no text…
02.20.09 at 9:58 pm
Craig S says:
I was really feeling this list from the beginning most of the way through, but the top choices are kind of suspect. I’ll give you the NWA cover since one of them’s brandishing a gun, even though otherwise it’s just six dudes standing around mean-mugging. But the Nas? What happened here is that you started to look at how great the album itself was. A baby picture super-imposed over a city background can’t beat some of the artistic stuff you had earlier in the list. Shoot, Lil Wayne did it better, even if he didn’t do it first. Props for referencing the No-Limit covers. The list was very good overall and taught me a couple things.
02.20.09 at 10:33 pm
itskelz says:
Ryan Murphy needs to find a new job and not decide what album covers are hip-hop’s “best”.
02.20.09 at 11:10 pm
Jamrock says:
Daaayum this top 8 is greaaaat!! i’d extend it to a Top 10 with Makaveli : 7th day theory and
Cypress Hill’s Temple of Boom ;)
02.20.09 at 11:27 pm
MECCA MAN says:
NO, ATLIENS???
FUCK YO, POST
02.21.09 at 2:59 am
tim heidecker says:
@ Craig S. The reason Illmatic is the best hip hop album cover is because it changed the direction of hip hop. Instead of being about money or guns or hoes it featured a child in the ghetto. It was poetry, it was life, it was truth, it was art. You dig?
02.21.09 at 11:37 am
Gooch says:
I agree with shucks. How the hell did N.W.A. make it by standing over a camera and looking down, and Paul’s Boutique didn’t? Your list sucks.
02.21.09 at 12:28 pm
Johnny Popcorn says:
what about Doggystyle? Tell me that wasn’t a great album cover. how ’bout Tical? or maybe Dare iz a Darkside,Muddy Waters.
02.21.09 at 12:56 pm
Iceman says:
Where’s ATLiens? Where’s The Don Killuminati? Where’s 8Ball and MJG Comin Out Hard. There’s a lot of great album covers that were left off. This is a debate that can go on and on. These are just the ones i would’ve had.
02.21.09 at 1:01 pm
Iceman says:
Where’s ATLiens? Where’s Aquemini? Where’s The Don Killuminati? Where’s 8Ball and MJG Comin Out Hard. There’s a lot of great album covers that were left off. This is a debate that can go on and on. These are just the ones i would’ve had.
02.22.09 at 6:41 am
tony grand$ says:
Hip hop cover art is almost dead. If it’s not the zillions of mixtapes floating around (some of which offer far better cover work than actual music), then it’s the sheer magnitude of the Internet. As long as downloads are the main way to get the new albums, artists aren’t going to put the same effort into an album jacket as they once did. It’s a lost art, disposable canvas. I like all the picks, especially the more simple ones (ie NaS, NWA). It took simplicity to a complicated part of the mind. Without all the “shiny things” & “bells & whistles” to get our attention, we had to focus on what was implied by the imagery. Oh, & lol @ Maven. I call it “cybonics”.
02.22.09 at 11:44 am
Johnny Popcorn says:
You left out No Limit,too.Now those were some good ones.O yea,what ’bout ATLiens?
02.22.09 at 8:44 pm
Shaolin Soldier says:
now i wouldnt agree with the whole list… but let me say that NAS definetly deserves to be on top.. nas is the greatest poet/MC/artist of all of hiphop.. noone is better… i aint dickridin i just kno when someone is real and i kno real music… NAS is the realest and i could give a fuck wat anyone else thinks… peace.. one love
02.23.09 at 3:41 am
GO-Getta' says:
Illmatic is the most duplicated hip hop album cover so faaaaaar!
02.26.09 at 4:35 am
Corb says:
Poverty, desolation, and the loss of childhood innocence??? How in the world does “Illmatic” show any of this on the cover?!?!?!
02.27.09 at 4:06 am
corb is an internet dick says:
@ corb. poverty= the project housing in the picture desolation= the child is the lone figure here, no parents, friends or family loss of childhood innocence= this is not a happy, smiling kid. the grim look on his face, juxtaposed against the inner city in the background, hints that the boy has lived through more than a child should have. in closing, use your brain before you leave a shitty comment, you fucking moron
03.7.09 at 10:34 pm
Orlando says:
The Midnight Marauder’s album cover. Just realized that younger dudes now may not even know who the people with the headphones are and how relevant they were to HipHop then. I understand the Illmatic cover too. I totally forgot about that Geto Boyz album - gonna look for it play that joint again.
03.12.09 at 10:22 pm
Harlem 6 Wu Tang says:
Cool article. Good list dude.