Studio Practice: nas' illmatic

research book

the first album i've chosen to look at is nas' illmatic - infamous alb, hip hop classic - with gripping, gritty & rich story telling.
i wasn't completely familiar with it before this project but looking at lyrics, interviews, reviews and interpretations behind it has made me realise how good it is and this is making me struggle a little bit in terms of figuring out how to respond to it

although there are metaphors and things i could respond to i really do feel like the lyrics are rich enough and that in terms of images they don't need much - it almost feels a bit disrespectful to dissect any of it too much because the album in already in itself a work of art and maybe im reading too much into this but at the moment my approach is going to be producing a series of images that are well crafted and that highlight the mood of the album - keeping it simple but well done and maybe having a lyric book/publication where my images come as a compliment to the words as opposed to being the primary focus. thats the only thing that feels appropriate to do in response to illmatic.

in terms of the approaches i wanted to push i think that gouache might be good to bring in - thinking of keeping the colour scheme of this book within the same constraints of the research book as they reflect the tone of the album quite well - so earthy, muted tones.

have done some sketches from photographs from this amazing photography book (see below) and i might just paint these and see what happens - then go from there.

ernie paniccioli's photography

also found another hip hop history photographer, lisa leone, that also took some nice shots of nas. nice stuff :)