There have been many mashups of Jay-Z’s music over the years. My personal favourites would have to be Jay-Z and Linkin Park’s “Collision Course,” Danger Mouse’s “The Grey Album” and most recently I discovered Max Tannone’s “Jaydiohead” & ”Jaydiohead – The Encore.” The two piece’s above were inspired by those mashup albums and the artwork for Jay-Z’s “The Black Album” and “The Blueprint III.” 

Ok some of you might be thinking this looks quite similar to my last post and to be honest yes one piece inspired the other. I can’t remember exactly which way round it was, I think I had the idea to draw this piece before the Cascade Sticker, but I ended up designing those first and then this piece followed shortly afterwards. If that makes any sense?

I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to design a new character that was ”big and bold, looked stupid yet happy and excitable.” I also mentioned that he likes to eat everything. I haven’t done anything with my Toast character since last July so it was fun to bring him back again, even for a brief moment.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to my latest character design / illustration, I would like you all to meet Doopa!

Doopa featured in the artwork for Zo AKA La Chauve -Souris’ Podcast 57 mix on Cascade, dressed up as Batman. Here he is again as a limited edition sticker available via Cascade Records. They’re limited to 100 editions only. They can be bought in the Cascade Shop: here & Bigcartel here!

This new character was born during a mammoth doodling session a couple of months ago. I wanted to create a new character that was big and bold, looked stupid yet happy and excitable. After a few drafts it turned out that he also likes to eat everything.

Here’s the artwork I illustrated and designed for Zo AKA La Chauve-Souris’ “Podcast 57″ mix which is now available on Cascade Records. For those of you who don’t know, “La Chauve-Souris” means “The Bat” in French. Don’t worry I didn’t know that either, Sal from Cascade had to translate for me!

So you might be thinking, who’s this little character? Well let me introduce you to a new creation of mine, this is Doopa who has been dressed up as Batman. I have a few other pieces and projects in the pipeline with this little fella so watch this space.

Here’s the artwork I designed for the collaboration EP, “Expert Diggs,” by beat producers, The Expert and Danny Diggs. This is what they had to say about it:

“All it took was their names. This EP came about through the idea of simply having a project called “Expert Diggs”. Simply put The Expert & Danny Diggs decided to digg in the crates and find songs to give each other to sample and flip and put their own unique spin on them. This EP is the final product of these “Expert Diggs”. 

So who flipped it better? Always a topic among hip hop heads whether you are talking DJ Premier V Pete Rock’s flip of Ahmad Jamal’s “I Love Music”…. The Beatnuts V Buckwild flip of Cal Tjader’s “Morning” … Dilla’s V Nottz flip of Jerry Butlers “Just because i love you”. Digging for records and flipping samples is a part of hip-hop….and we love this shit!”

The concept behind the project’s artwork was to create an image that was themed around a beat makers task of hunting out new samples, by digging through crates of vinyl found in unusual places. I designed a simple 7 inch sleeve and vinyl sticker which I had printed. I then cut and pasted the whole thing together by hand. The photos above were shot by yours truly on a shelf of 7 inchs in the British Heart Foundation charity shop on the Streatham High road in London.

Photo Source: Spitshine on Facebook

Photos – Concrete, Shoreditch

The short film, “Arkadişm Erhan” (My Friend Erhan) that I worked on last year has since gone on to be accepted into a number of film festivals and even picked up a couple of awards along the way:

Awards:

George Lindsey International Film Festival: Winner, Best Director & Best Student Narrative,

California Film: Winner Diamond Award,

Festivals:

Official Selection: Beloit International Film Festival,

Official Selection: Chicago International Children’s Film Festival (Oscar Qualifying)

Official Selection: Cornwall International Film Festival,

In-competiton: 5th CMS International Children’s Film Festival

In-competiton: San Francisco International Film Festival (Oscar Qualifying)

In-competiton: Cleveland and International Film Festival (Oscar Qualifying)

Here’s the artwork that I designed for Jake Brown AKA Handbook’s latest single, “Sun King.” In order to create the effect you see above I used one of the images I shot for the “Higher Manifestations” artwork that was created for Handbook’s collaboration project with Supreme Sol.

Here’s what Handbook had to say about his latest single:

“After a long bleak Winter, the soul feels drained of life and substance. Buried beneath dense layers of darkness and bleakness.

The Sun King rises to instil life in the soul again.

Brand new single from me, HB, showing my approach heading in a different direction. The sample may sound familiar to you but I feel I utilised it in a whole different way.”

The single is available here: Soundcloud & Bandcamp go get it now!

Whilst typing up this website post I discovered one of Handbook’s beats “Sun Rising” has been featured on a O’Neil surfing video. Click here to check it out, it’s a great little video.