The INCREDIBLE Story of Kanye’s MBDTF Cover Art

in the spring of 2009 george condo a visual artist from new york city received a mysterious call from honolulu halfway across the world it was coming straight from kanye west who while holed up on an island in the middle of the ocean to finish his next masterpiece decided that kondo was the only one who could design the album's cover up until this point condo had been no slouch he'd been working with new york city's most iconic artists for years andy warhol keith herring jack kurak jean-michel basquiat to name just a few basically people knew who he was his own art style simulated realism was developed in an effort to join academic european painting with 20th century pop art and his paintings had been displayed extensively at prestigious galleries in the u.s and europe since the 1980s renowned art dealer adam lindemann wrote that along with basquiat and keith herring kondo was instrumental in the international revival of painting throughout the 80s but back to 2009 in the phone call from hawaii at 56 years old kondo wasn't particularly familiar with modern hip-hop so kanye's music was a new concept but breaking artistic boundaries wasn't and their collaboration would result in five of the greatest album covers of all time but first let's talk about the music as every fan of kanye already knows the late 2000s were a dark time in his career following an album that somewhat disappointed fans at first and the death of his mother not two years earlier kanye stole the mic from taylor swift during the vmas in an awkward moment that could be heard around the world and would stain his career forever his planned 808's and heartbreak tour with lady gaga was suddenly cancelled he was public enemy number one overnight he needed something big something huge to come back from this so he collected some of the biggest names in music hold himself up in hawaii and emerge from the studio with arguably the best album of the entire decade dark twisted fantasy tells a grandiose story it details the dark side of consumer culture race relations and the american dream alone this album is a spectacular show of exactly why kanye is considered one of the greatest living artists grand access beautiful production and deeply human themes of success and failure together but with george kondo's help the album's cover is equal in quality and in theme to the music and honestly i want to say it wouldn't be the same without it george condo produced eight paintings during the summer he worked with kanye and five were chosen to be included for the album kanye visited his studio ten times and each time he went they would listen to songs from the project and come up with concepts each artwork tells a story and has a unique theme ranging from religious to spiritual with some even taking inspiration from shakespearean motifs let's get into it number one kanye and his phoenix a grotesque naked kanye west relaxes on a couch with a beer in his hand a naked armless woman sits on his lap complete with wings a tail and fearsome facial features george condo says she's kind of a fragment between a sphinx a phoenix a haunting ghost and a harpy and then kanye is also in some sort of strange 1970s burned out back room of a chicago blues club having a beer so far away from the real kanye that is just a scream kanye loved it and it became the primary cover of the record although you may not recognize it in such high definition it was censored by every single music streaming service so this is probably the version you've seen most of the time this wasn't an accident kanye actually specifically requested that kondo make sure one of the covers would be banned by retailers a month before the album was released kanye tweeted that walmart had banned his record from being sold due to the inappropriate cover walmart responded by saying they were looking forward to having his record in stores and they hadn't been shown any art yet proving that kanye is once again a master of publicity number two the dancer a ballerina in a black dress stands away from the viewer but turns around to look to the side she's holding a glass of wine as if to make a toast when some retailers did refuse to sell the record with the original cover this was sometimes substituted instead making it the record's second most well-known cover at one point during condo and kanye's listening sessions they were listening to run away when condo's wife showed kanye a video of a ballerina moving in slow motion which kanye latched onto ballerinas would later become a central visual motif for the record short film kondo says the ballerina's glass is a reference to runaway's chorus which suggests toasting kanye's various enemies number three the sword a sword pierces kanye's crowned decapitated head his face is frozen in a permanent look of shock and anger with this painting kondo wanted to depict a shakespearean scene and consistent with his personal style he mixed cubism and classicism to do so the shakespeare influence came from where kanye was at this point in his public life he wanted to depict kanye's tragic character arc the king in a self-imposed exile this painting was kanye's twitter avatar for a long time so it's probably the third most well-known of all the paintings number four and five two screaming faces one with four mouths the other with three they're portraits of kanye once again in the cuba style this one comes from kanye's very first visit to kondo's studio where he played power kondo heard the king crimson sample and immediately knew he wanted to paint a portrait the portrait clearly takes inspiration from the cover art for king crimson's 1969 album in the court of the crimson king condo describes the painting like this like an african mask with almost a modern face i wanted to get the feeling that he's like a miles davis type of guy dark twisted fantasy and its album covers are perfect examples of how cover art can elevate a record if dark chested fantasy didn't have such iconic cover art would it still be such an iconic album would it be able to stand the test of time if it looked like every other hip-hop record it certainly doesn't sound like any other hip-hop record and it takes someone with a vision as powerful as kanye to curate a whole experience like this where every single piece of the project is big impactful emotional and worth examining there may be artists who get more views and streams than kanye but almost no one could ever compete when it comes to the amount of detail he puts into his work his best album the best album of our time has not one amazing detailed meaningful cover but five separate ones all carefully designed and painted by one of the greatest painters alive because just as we talked about before with the cover art for kids see ghosts when it comes to kanye's art nothing will do but the very best this has been volksgeist thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Volksgeist

Views: 133,291

Keywords: volksgeist, kanye, kanye west, my beautiful dark twisted fantasy, donda, coverstories, cover stories

Id: MzjJO1G0C2M

Length: 5min 52sec (352 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 15 2021