I Heart My Polo Lifestyle

Uh… What was I thinking?

Goopy Version

Actually, I can’t dis this as this was closer to the original cover concept God delivered to me one day while in the shower. This is the image I saw in my head which eventually became the current album cover. The only difference is I saw the side view of the set of feet & legs. I also didn’t really see my name being on the cover as it is here but this was all tweaked with the help of Yoram Benz (art dude at Decon).

I once remember sending this image to Kanye way before he officially became involved in my album as executive producer; I just wanted to show him & get his critique. Initially he said he liked it. Months later I show him the same .jpg & he had a change of view. He felt like this cover was dope in concept but was saying too much & was way too cluttered. I disagreed with him but was willing to hear him out. I almost forgot that he a real artist in the truest sense of the word; ‘Ye can really draw. This conversation takes place the same day he asked me if he could executive produce my album (which was an offer I initially turned down but it took a lot of convincing for me to give the ‘green light’). Retarded right? Yeah… I know but I just couldn’t fork over my ‘brainchild’ that easily.

So, in the midst of Kanye telling me the changes he thinks should be made to this o.g. version of The Death of Adam cover, he interrupts himself & asks, “Yo, how far is Decon from here¹?” To Decon we go.

Now we arrive at the office of Decon (/Okayplayer). It was pretty funny to see everybody’s reaction when Martin Louis The King, Jr. (uh… address him as such) entered the office. Kanye asks to see the art work… And so the magic begins. Approximately 7 minutes later, are you reading this? SEVEN MINUTES LATER, ‘ye (thru the hands of Yoram) redesigns my album cover to what it is today. He basically pulled back on a lot of stuff which was already in the photo thus keeping it simple (stupid)² & clean. Overall it’s pretty damn striking I must admit. Now while Kanye was suggesting theses changes, Peter Bittenbender (Decon label head) started to go into his “I toldja so” comments because some of the changes ‘ye made were suggestions Pete had made few weeks prior but ‘Ye kind of shut him down on that. Now, contrary to popular belief, Kanye doesn’t just bark on people for the sake of barkin’ on people. He just let Pete & Yoram know that I (& people in general) should be allowed to get all of my creative ideas out & on the table to be further discussed as opposed to shooting down ideas due to any type of “limitations”: (i.e. time, cost, etc.) In other words, everybody pitch in their own ideas & see what sticks rather than being told that further adjustments (being major or minute) are time consuming & costing a lot of money.

Well, all this being said, initially I was hatin’ on the ‘new’ cover. Everybody around us thought is was fresh as Hell. I thought they all just got bitten by the Kanye-is-the-DEFINITION-of-fresh bug & that’s why they all sided with him. Once again, this turned into a matter of me just having to ‘let go’ of my 2½ year old brainchild. Once I was able to step away from MY original idea, my clouded judgement suddenly turned to… CLEAR BLUE SKIES (like my album cover). I fell in line & agreed.

Oh & for the record, my album cover for The Death of Adam is fresh as Hell.

Shouts:

• Kanye for your super creative input. Can’t thank you enough.
• Yoram Benz. Thanks for the initial ‘kill’ & every single ‘kill’ thereafter³.
• Adam & Eve. Thanks for leading an interesting life. I’m sure you two would have ruled the reality television air waves… Uh Spencer & Heidi WHO?

*Note:

1. “here” being his NYC loft.
2. Diamond D. song reference from his classic debut album Stunts, Blunts & Hip Hop. (Do your homework!)
3. Please see previous post: “The Friends Zone” ft. Shitake Monkey (Cover).