Paying tribute to the living legends: Dj Premier

This year a lot of music legends have left us, from Bowie and Prince to Bernie Worell and Maurice White to name but a few, unfortunately there were many more. There were a lot of tributes and more are under way since these music icons have had a huge impact on modern music. But isn’t it sad that we don’t talk about most of them while they are still alive and often ‘rediscover’ their genius only when they pass away?

This is why I am starting a new series of drawings that pays tribute to living legends. I want to pay tribute to music icons alive and well, and hopefully so for a long time to come.

The first tribute goes to a living legend I have had the honor of handing over my illustration in person: Dj Premier, the sound of New York hip hop from the 90’s, the golden era of the genre. Dj Premier is considered one of the top if not the top all time hip hop producers and is a celebrated dj as well. He was the Dj/producer of Gang Starr and produced or remixed everybody in the rap game (Nas, Jay Z, Notorious Big, Rakim, Jeru, Krs One, Dr Dre, Snoop, ODB, Joey Bada$$, DITC, MOP…) and beyond (Christina Aguilera, Janet Jackson, Mark Ronson, D’Angelo, Branford Marsalis, Macy Gray, Limp Bizkit, Black Eyed Peas…). In the last decades he produced hundreds of tracks and still going strong. He elevated sampling to a real artform and pushed this recording technique to new heights. He sampled jazz records before other hip hop producers caught on and did the same. And he has been important for me personally because he is one of the reasons I started collecting vinyl records and djing. Thanks to his encyclopedian knowledge of all music he introduced me to a lot of great and overlooked music from the sixties and seventies, jazz, soul, funk, blues, rock and original soundtracks.

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The pencil drawing of Dj Premier. He said he would hang the original in his NYC studio.

Needless to say that meeting him was a dream come true. In July, Premier was headlining the closing night of the Free4Style sports and music festival in Estavayer, Switzerland, a venue where I had been djing during the day for a couple of years. When I learned they had booked Dj Premier, I asked the organizers about an opportunity to meet him. So in the afternoon, when he arrived backstage to prepare his soundcheck, I gave him my drawing as a present.

This tribute drawing is a very different piece of artwork than what I usually do. It is a portrait inspired by graffiti art I wanted to be close to reality, integrating a lot of details of Dj Premier’s amazing career that I had been following, as a fan, for more than 20 years. I was really pleased that he liked the illustration, and I was humbled that he appreciated the level of details to the point of posting about it several times on his instagram account. My fondest souvenir remains our picture together, beause it reminds me of our wonderful little chat, where he talked about his music and forthcoming projects the way other people talk about their kids.

Later in the day he went on Estavayer’s one and two and rocked the crowd, mixing not only hip hop tracks but also soul music and rock as well, cutting AC DC « Back in Black » and even Phil Collins « In the Air tonight ». For those who missed it, here’s a mix he did on the Diplo & Friends show on BBC Radio where he mixes a little bit of everything (from Rush, the Doors, to AC DC, RATM and Steve Miller as well as a lot of hip hop of course, you can check the tracklist here) and showing he has not lost a step.

Additions to my visual discography

Maybe you have already realized how much a music fan I am by reading this blog or by following my personal Instagram feed. Not only a music fan, but a very old school music fan: I prefer to listen to music on vinyl or tape rather than streamed or downloaded. Some of my music related illustrations are published in the "sound pics" section of this website.

Last year, thanks to my online postings, music producer Ologist BBB from the Better Beat Bureau collective of Virginia approached me and asked me to provide him with a couple of illustrations. His request eventually lead to my very first album cover artwork, for his "When Crates Create", which is a beat tape on actual old-fashioned tape. Therefore I owe the Ologist my very first entry in the online encyclopedia of discography Discogs.

This was only the beginning of our collaboration: thanks to the Ologist I am currently working on the cover artwork for another tape release. (Yes another tape release, and yes we are indeed living in the 21st century.) Actually, there seems to be a revival of tapes, similar to the vinyl revival we have witnessed during the last few years. Like the vinyl revival, the tape revival is spearheaded by music fans who like to have a nice object on physical support (a digital file is just not the same!), although the love of tapes represents more of an underground phenomenon than the love of vinyls.

The new tape project is inspired by breaks and samples mixtapes such as the "On track" series by Djs Kon & Amir in the mid 90's, mixing parts of soul, funk, jazz, rock records already sampled on hip hop or electro records or potential breaks to be used. Contrary to these releases, the originality of the project comes from the fact that the records have been selected by various vinyl collectors from all over the world, who have found each other thanks to the vinyl community on Instagram. I will not only provide the cover artwork, I have also had the honor to select a track for the mixtape. It is not easy to select only a single track out of the thousands of records I own, but I have finally found the one. A rare 70's Swiss psychedelic rock record, discovered some time ago through a fellow vinyl connaisseur and friend of mine.

My collaboration with the Ologist has sparked another project: I have been approached by his friend Jason McGuiness aka Analog Burners. He is a L.A. based DJ, record collector, graphic designer and music producer. You may know him because he released an incredible tribute to legendary Motown producer Norman Withfield a couple of years ago. I was very humbled when he asked me to draw the cover artwork for his new project, a jazz album mixing sampled beats and live instruments, which will be released on vinyl. Jason is currently putting the finishing touch on the recording and mixing of the full-length album. The first single will be a 45 vinyl with two tracks of the project titled "We could be / Empyrean Tones", featuring the works of such great musicians from the L.A. scene as keyboard player Mark de Clive Lowe, Aloe Blacc, drummer Te'Amir Sweeney and trumpet player Keyon Harrold, who played with D'Angelo, Beyonce, Jay Z, Kanye West, and played the trumpet parts in the Miles Davis biopic "Miles Ahead" (to be released in Europe soon).

Empyrean Tones: Keyon Harrold – Trumpet (D’Angelo, Maxwell, Miles Davis biopic, Kanye, etc) Duante St Louis – Keys/Organ Brandon Eugene Owens – Bass (Kendrick Lamar/Robert Glasper) Te’Amir Sweeney – Drums (Aloe Blacc) The role of art, at it’s most brave and brazen, has always been to provide unflinching reflections of reality. Music, the purest of all art forms, has the ability to crystallize moments and make history tangible. We’re living in the midst of current and historical pain, each new individual moment of destruction and despair opens deep wounds. From the opening sax notes, “We Could Be,” is a daring record in the tradition of grassroots music from the 60’s and 70’s. Bittersweet, it acknowledges the imbalance of pain within our communities. Bold, it refuses to buckle under that pressure and instead, it asks of us to step into the promise of previous generations. It proposes that we could be closer to freedom. While the lead track is a hard and hopeful aspiration, the flip side, “Empyrean Tones,” is the mind flight. This is where the heaviness of before dissipates like smoke and we are allowed to dream. Jason McGuiness, the projects’ producer, is in the old-school tradition of producers who need not pick up an instrument. With a vision and purpose, McGuiness culled an experienced group of music makers to create something that would reflect us back to ourselves. The instruments you hear are wielded by masters who have shared their talents with the likes of D’angelo, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, Robert Glasper, Aloe Blacc and more. But they’ve never done something quite like this. From Te’Amir’s drums to Mark de Clive-Lowe’s keys, up toKeyon Harrold’s sublime horns and HighScience Project’s timeless vocals, the magic here is in the submission of the individual in reverence of the collective. pre-order link: http://www.fatbeats.com/products/jason-mcguiness-ft-the-high-science-project-keyon-harrold-we-could-be-b-w-empyrean-tone-7

You can listen to "Empyrean Tones" above and pre-ordrer the 45 single on fat beats records. It has already received raving reviewes by major US music magazines such as Ego Trip and Wax Poetics.

One of the privileges of being an album cover artist is the fact that I have already had the chance to listen to some other tracks, and I am really excited about the forthcoming release. It will also feature jazz legend Phil Ranelin from the Tribe collective of Detroit, who released many classic spiritual jazz albums on their Tribe independent label in the 70's and 80's (all releases are collectors' items today) and even recorded an album with Detroit Techno legend Carl Craig some years ago.

I am very happy to report that Jason liked my artwork proposals for the album cover. He liked them so much he had a hard time selecting only one illustration and might even be using two different drawings/paintings... To be continued.

Cover artwork llustration proposal by Gregoart (2016). All rights reserved. China ink and pencil on paper.

Cover artwork llustration proposal by Gregoart (2016). All rights reserved. China ink and acrylics on cardboard.

Introducing Oh ! the Beat Nomad

At the beginning of the year, I decided to take on an Instagram challenge and do « A drawing a day » as part of my new year’s resolutions. Not an easy task and like most new year’s resolution I couldn’t manage to do it for the whole year. Yet, after 4 months, I had posted more than 100 drawings and doodles (you can watch them on my Instagram account). I am proud of this as I had never produced so much day after day, or maybe yes, when I was a child. There is nothing like daily training to improve your skills and even though I don’t post a daily drawing anymore, I do practice daily.

Among other subjects, I drew a couple of Alien characters which got some positive feedbacks from the IG community. Even though I am not a social media die hard fan/user I do like me some Instagram where I post drawings as well as some pics of my vinyl records. What I like most about this particular social media is that you can follow and be followed not only by friends but by people from all over the world who share the same interests (a bit like twitter but using pictures instead of short texts I cannot write as you can see judging by my blog entries:) And this is thanks to Instagram that I have been approached by a beatmaker called OlogistBBB, BBB standing for the Better Beat Bureau collective out of Norfolk, Virginia. He saw some of my drawings and liked them very much, especialy the alien characters such as the one below.

I had heard of Ologist and the Better Beat Bureau who are Virginia underground hip hop best kept secrets. He had released a tribute album to Gil-Scott Heron composed of samples of the late poet. Those not familiar with hip hop might think : « well, they do not come from the main rap cities like NYC, LA or Atlanta ». Think again, Virginia is a major state when it comes to hip hop and R&B. The State is home to R&B icons such as Pharell Williams, Missy Elliott, Timbaland, D’Angelo as well as hip hop producers like Nottz or Bink! who appeared on albums by Jay Z, Busta Rhymes, Kanye West or even the last and excellent Dr Dre album (Bink ! did the soulful « it’s all on me » beat). Ologist is actually close to Nottz and Bink! and has been active on the scene for years, releasing good old hip hop beats, reminiscent of the mid 90’s so called « golden age » without being pale imitations.

So, Ologist contacted me on Instagram and asked me if I could draw a new alien character for him, one which would be kind of his alter ego, a bit like Madlib did with the Quasimoto character drawn by Stones Throw Art Director Jeff Jank. So I drew an alien character dressed like a B-boy and a real hip hop producer digging for records and using a MPC, one of the cult sampler/sequencer used by the best producers.

Ologist found the name « Oh ! The beat nomad » and soon after released a first track using the character, a nice little remix of « Rememory » by Chance the rapper, Donnie Trumpet & the social experiment ft Erykah Badu you can listen here :

The track was mentioned on a couple of major music blogs like 2dopeboyz and it felt really good to see our little alien in there. Then, Oh! the beat nomad struck again with a remix of « ...gointohell » by R&B’s newest star Miguel, a couple of days after the release of his album. The remix was also posted in some high profile blogs, and Miguel himself retweeted the remix on his account to give it a good exposure (he has more than 800k followers).

And this is only the beginning of « Oh ! the beat nomad » adventures as Ologist is working on his new EP called « Numb3rs » and I have the pleasure of doing the cover artwork. More info about exciting future collaborations very soon... To be continued