arts & crafts

Hey, top priority: Peace before everything God before anything Love before anything Real before everything Home before anyplace Shoot before anything Style and state radiate Love power slay the hate…

Steer the course make a way And come ashore on a greater day Home grown from the greatest grain Full flavor in the native strain Now put that on your brainy brain Full exposure to favorite slang Minimal wage and major gangs Y’all seen them play the bait Later night from day to day—they came to play We came to stay—get out the way

Peace before anything God before everything Love before anything Real before everything …Style and state radiate Love power slay the hate—priority

—Mos Def, “Priority”

[his birthday is today]

+++++

This was inspired by GZA’s 4th Chamber.

It was done for an exposition called 1M2, where several artists were asked to contribute a 1 square meter artwork, based on one of their favorite Hip Hop songs. It runs in Amsterdam from april 20th 2018 until june 20th in De Duivel.

I wanted to do something with a vintage comic feel as an ode to Denys Cowan’s iconic Liquid swords cover. Also inspired by the lead sample from Shogun Assassin i wanted to do a Samurai, that track just screams warrior to me. I tried to incorporate other hints to the crazy lyrics in the track. The iron mask refers to Ghost’s “ironman sippin rum out of stanley cups” line and the wu shaped sparkle in the eye refers to RZA’s “you can see the weakness of a man right through his iris” line. There’s some others in there as well. Either way im happy with the grim, aggressive feel as the track is exactly that to me.