Deraj talks how artwork got him signed to RMG, favorite 2015 album cover he didn’t design

Before Reflection Music Group signed Deraj as a recording artist, the record label had hired him as another type of artist.

Deraj graduated from Full Sail University with a bachelor’s degree in digital arts and design, and Rapzilla recently interviewed him about his background as a multidisciplinary artist.

“Music was always kind of like a secondary thing,” Deraj said. “I didn’t have a projection of trying to get signed to a label or anything. I just loved making music, and people liked the music that I was making doing it locally in Orlando. [I] got picked up after having worked for RMG for maybe like a year and a half. They found out that I did music, too, so I’m probably the only rapper that’s got a record deal off of doing artwork.”

Deraj has designed the cover art of many Reflection Music Group projects over the past few years — Derek Minor’s Empire, Canon’s Loose Canon, Vol. 1, Mad Haven and Loose Canon, Vol. 2, Tony Tillman’s Camden, B. Cooper’s While The City Sleeps and Chad Jones’s Keep Up. Deraj also owns a multimedia design company, See & Hear Creative.

The artist told Rapzilla that his favorite album cover (that he didn’t design) in 2015 was Andy Mineo’s Uncomfortable, which was designed by Alex Medina.

“That was good branding for the title that he has, Uncomfortable, and the uncomfortableness of the shot,” Deraj said. “‘Cause if just take a picture that’s that close to somebody’s face, for one, that just feels uncomfortable ’cause it puts you in the front seat of like, if I was really this close to somebody, that would be very uncomfortable.”

Watch Deraj’s two-part interview about artwork below. Deraj is scheduled to release a collaborative EP with B. Cooper titled For The People on March 11.

David Daniels
David Daniels
David Daniels is a columnist at Rapzilla.com and the managing editor of LegacyDisciple.org. He has been published at Desiring God, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, CCM Magazine, Bleacher Report, The Washington Times and HipHopDX.
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