NativeSun's Official Blog

“Jean Michel Basquiat’s following continues to perplex me.  I stare at the paintings in search of the answers, then arrive at the realization that this is what draws others in as well.”

— NativeSun

A few shots that I captured of T-Wall Art in Baghdad, Iraq

Enjoying my iPad 2 courtesy of StyleLight Pro!

Check out my digital paintings…

Custom vector pieces I did for Stic.man of Dead Prez…

After seeing the “Roach/Fooling” piece I did using his partner M-1’s lyrics in my gallery on FaceBook he asked if I could create some using his lyrics: He suggested a few to me and I made mention of others that I thought were cool… So we arrived at 6 sets with an optional 7th for “Karate”.  

The challenge was to keep them as simple two-color designs, for potential screen printing purposes, as the original versions were complex and would be too expensive to print on t-shirts.

Let me know what you think, and I’ll be happy to share your thoughts with him.

Reposts are welcome, and greatly appreciated!

Cover art for my homie E-Val Styles’ upcoming mixtape… We sat down and rapped a bit about concepts for the cover a few weeks back. I played around with themes based on those discussions, and could not come up with any art that was ART.

Keep in mind… I’m on a crusade, to distance my work from that of other “designers” so, it’s important for me to maintain a large portion of creative freedom in a project. Some clients just hit me with a quick idea, and allow me to run with it… while others, have brainchildren that need molding. In this case… I kinda seized the wheel! While, I see E-Val Styles as a brilliant New YorCarolian emcee… he makes a lot of music for the streets. I felt that his new art needed to be something totally different than what his fan base is used to seeing me create.

So, how did I come to choose this as the visual representation for a hard street album? While meeting with him at his home studio, Val knew from the jump that he wanted the album covers for this mixtape series to be black and white, and that he wanted black duct tape on it. He had some other ideas that I jotted down, regarding text placement, etc. When I hopped in the car that day on the way to pick up my son, The Professor… I visualized the completed artwork the way he wanted it. Later on, I combed the net for photos of duct tape, and even considered doing a mini-photo shoot to get things the way I wanted them for the composition. A few days later when I sat down ready to execute the project, I was unable to get into it… I just wasn’t feeling any of the things that we discussed. So, I began work on some things for another artist that I had in cue.

I usually have music playing in order to keep the creative juices flowing, and one day as I was working on something that is so past due, [I’m embarrassed to say what it is] Raekwon’s Only Built for Cuban Linx worked it’s way into my iTunes Genius Mix. This album was a street album indeed, but lyrically and production wise… it’s a masterpiece! It was at that time that I began to get back into the Black Duct Tape project. As Rae and Ghost’s poetic tales of drug life played, I began to visualize imagery of censorship, the all seeing eye, big brother, the similarities between traps in the concrete jungle and down south. Eventually, I found an old “Big Brother” propaganda piece, and tried to work it into a 5” x 5” canvas a few different ways. The end result is what you see…

Big Brother, with his mouth taped off, and eyes shielded. Crumpled paper, the New York city skyline (in the distance… symbolic of the artist’s roots), and dark “organic substance” spattered across it all. Then of course, the black duct tape… added to appear as though it’s actually on the poster. Interpretations could include… The Street Cat defeating the feds… Operating Under the Radar… The Underdog taking the Evil Empire hostage… etc. Either way I think it’s perfect for the street artist that spits a few light years ahead of his peers.