Since Christian hip hop’s inception, the lack of quality has been commented on by Christians and non Christians alike. I have been involved in Christian hip hop for the last 10 years, and the complaints remain the same. Mark LaFay, one of my best friends, and manager to Christian bands Haste The Day, Gwen Stacy, etc., turned me onto Christian hip hop for the first time back in 2000. The first taste of Christian hip hop I got was John Reuben’s song “Do Not” and Mars iLL’s album ‘Raw Material’. After listening to these samples and then searching out other releases in Christian hip hop, I soon found out that those were the exception and not the norm. The poor quality and blatant copying of popular secular hip hop has been a common topic over the years, but we can save it for another time. I will transition out of this intro on a good note though, and say that I definitely have seen great improvements sonically. In this article, I want to focus on the design and packaging of Christian hip hop products.
Since Christian hip hop’s inception, the lack of quality has been commented on by Christians and non Christians alike. I have been involved in Christian hip hop for the last 10 years, and the complaints remain the same. Mark LaFay, one of my best friends, and manager to Christian bands Haste The Day, Gwen Stacy, etc., turned me onto Christian hip hop for the first time back in 2000. The first taste of Christian hip hop I got was John Reuben’s song “Do Not” and Mars iLL’s album ‘Raw Material’. After listening to these samples and then searching out other releases in Christian hip hop, I soon found out that those were the exception and not the norm. The poor quality and blatant copying of popular secular hip hop has been a common topic over the years, but we can save it for another time. I will transition out of this intro on a good note though, and say that I definitely have seen great improvements sonically. In this article, I want to focus on the design and packaging of Christian hip hop products.
I’ve spent as much time, if not more time working within the secular side of the music industry where there are (or were) budgets and artists could afford great design and packaging for their product. In general the secular market is infinitely larger. Naturally, the secular market, given its size and budgets, yielded good design and packaging much more often than seen in the tiny Christian hip hop market. Christian hip hop has almost never seen major label support, and for better or worse, design was done by the rapper/musicians friend, brother, or themselves to make it work financially.
The job of the album artwork designer is getting much easier these days, being that digital downloads only require front cover art. With that, the ability or skill to design something that is a cohesive piece of art, and possessing the knowledge of how to technically lay out artwork for the application of printing CD’s or vinyl is quickly fading.
Many have argued, as do I, that cover art is almost always, a reliable reflection of the quality of music inside. Appearance holds great weight when someone is purchasing music if they aren’t already a fan. And as an artist you are always striving for more sales which come from new fans. When you browse iTunes you are first presented with what? The album cover art. So a potential buyer is making their decision to click and listen solely from their eyes being enticed by design. Design is/was even more important before digital music, being you couldn’t easily listen to samples of the music on a CD unless that store offered a CD player to do so.
With the technology that exists today (internet, photoshop), and it being so readily available, there is no excuse for bad design. With the internet, you can easily find the best designers all over the globe and commission them for your project. On the flip side, you can also find someone to design your album art for next to nothing. There is no excuse for bad design. It isn’t as if you, or the designers today (for the most part) are creating this artwork by hand like they did prior to computers.
Prior to CD’s and cassette tapes, records were thee format to consume music on. One of the beautiful things about records is the 12″ x 12″ sleeve the record is stored in. This is a huge canvass that designers have to work with. However, pre 1940, album artwork was non existent. Alex Steinweiss invented the album cover as we know it, and created a new graphic art form. In 1940, as Columbia Records young new art director, he pitched an idea: Why not replace the standard plain brown wrapper with an eye-catching illustration? The company took a chance, and within months its record sales increased by over 800 per cent. His covers for Columbia combining bold typography with modern, elegant illustrations took the industry by storm and revolutionized the way records were sold.
“I love music so much and I had such ambition that I was willing to go way beyond what the hell they paid me for. I wanted people to look at the artwork and hear the music.” – Alex Steinweiss
Personally, when there is effort put into the design and packaging of a product, I notice and greatly appreciate it. If the art and packaging is good enough it can definitely persuade me to buy something that I may not have, even if the music was just good enough.
Christian hip hop has released some albums that I’m a fan of visually, including L.A. Symphony:
Mars ILL have released a few albums that I enjoyed visually as well:
Designed by Miguel Bautista
This brings me to a few examples of great quality products, great design, and great packaging.
Outside of Christian hip hop, multi-platinum artist Beck, released a remix single project with four versions of the song boasting some of the most amazing packaging I’ve ever seen.
Iconic urban designer Brent Rollins, has created what we may possibly nominate for ‘album packaging of the year.’ Rollins is responsible for memorable artwork for Black Starr, Mos Def, Blackalicious, Gift of Gab, Boyz N The Hood, Ego Trip, and more.
– The CD in a digipak format with a design exclusive to the deluxe bundle
– Special edition laser engraved moleskin journal
– Download card that includes MP3’s of the entire album plus instrumental & acapella tracks, as well as the official Sho Baraka music video and promo videos
– 12″ vinyl version of ‘Lions & Liars’ which includes four album tracks, plus four instrumentals
1. The Rising ft. Trip Lee, Erica Cumbo
2. Famous ft. Erica Cumbo
3. We Can Be More ft. J.R.
4. Me, Myself and I
First pressing of the vinyl is on gold colored vinyl, limited to 500 pieces
– Two exclusive Lions & Liars stickers
And lastly, any deluxe package purchases will help support Myles-A-Part, an organization committed to supporting families living with autism. For every deluxe version purchased, $5.00 will go towards therapy scholarships awarded to families for medical and therapy bills not covered by insurance or Medicaid. This is a very important partnership and cause to Sho Baraka, as his son is autistic.
MCH. Make. Customers. Happy. Come with innovation, creativity, quality, and value in your music, design, and packaging. I’ve pre-ordered my ‘Ultimate Deluxe Package’, have you?