Im looking for hip hop influenced artwork. As I am in my final year of university I have a huge quantity of research to do. My biggest influence is urban music, so after a few hours of looking through blogs and websites i have found some great links to share with everyone.
The Boondocks
The Boondocks is an American animated series created by Aaron McGruder for the american TV channel Adult Swim. It is based upon McGruder’s comic strip, which he started at the end of his college studies.
The Boondocks is a social satire of American culture and race relations (or stereotypes in the world), revolving around the lives of the Freeman family: ten-year-old Huey, his younger brother, eight-year-old Riley, and their grandfather, Robert. Below is a quck youtube click of the animated series. If you haven’t seen any before, its extremely funny but has extremely BAD LANGUAGE.
The artwork is anime influenced but with a hip hop twist. Each series usually has a new character based on an iconic urban artist. The hip hop fashion culture is also expressed through different characters. Some having baggy jeans, jewelry, baseball caps and hoodys. I believe this has been the first comic/ animated series to represent hip hop culture and just the The Simpsons, it is the pioneer of this style so it will stay around for a long time.
Click here to visit the Boondocks Website
Blockhedz
There are lot of hip hop artists that are inspired by superheroes and supervillians. Artist like Big Punisher, Chali 2na, DJ Clark Kent have all obviously started a career by using their favorite characters to kick boost start their music success.
Creators of Blokhedz, Brandon Schultz and the Mad Twiinz, Mike and Mark Davis, write and illustrate the comic book series. The story is about an inner-city MC called Blak, battling the cold streets of Empire City. Boondocks is different as it feeds of stereotypes and media influences to produce storylines, where as Blokheds is more far fetched in character personalities as they have special powers to overcome the villains. Here is a short YouTube video for you to look at
Info from:
Formatmag.com
Mission G
Destroy All Mics
Destroy All Mics is a blog site I have found randomly searching ‘hip hop comics’ in google. I believe the blog site was created by some artists from a collective called Flood Works. The blog site only has 2 pieces of artwork but they are worth looking at. I would love to see them create more iconic hip hop figures. The image above is called BRO.D.O.C., the BROther Designed Only for Chillin’. It is a mash up of the hip hop legend Notorious BIG and the marvel character MODOK which i think is pretty cool
Click here to visit the blog site
MAYHEM
I have a previous post about Tyrese’s Mayhem comic book so I wont say to much about it. Click here to read it. Tyrese starred in the comic book movie Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen and just after the release of Transformers 2, he launched the series of Mayhem.
EMINEM
The Amreican superstar rapper, producer and actor is a globally recognized artist. He has had sold out concerts worldwide, multi platinum albums and Slim Shady clothing line, so he has become a huge icon for many different cultures and races. After winning a grammy in 1999 for his debut album “Slim Shady LP” he is now recognized as one of the most influential hip hop stars of all time. One thing I admire about him is comical music videos. Here is the video for the single”Without Me,” where he poses as a superhero called Rap Boy
Eminem also has a animated series called The Slim Shady Show A youtube clip is below. WARNING it has bad language.
To be at the top of the game you need great marketing strategies. So just before the release of his previous albumThe Relapse he featured in the comic series The Punisher. Click here to read the EMINEN VS THE PUNISHER. I didnt think it was that great but its something different. Eminem seems to love the comic book look and I hope he continues to push his creativity through illustration and animation.
