Maltese Graphic Designer Recreates Some Of The Most Iconic Hip Hop Album Covers As Cartoons And It’s Pure Fire
Ideally, we like our favourite albums to be untouched and unspoiled – they are perfect the way they are. But when Maltese designer Zack Ritchie comes along, we let him have his way because we know the end product can be truly mind-blowing.
The young Maltese illustrator has taken some of the most well-recognised album artwork and given them his own creative and cartoony touch, and it makes for some great collectible pieces.
Some of the most gangsta rap albums have been transformed into the cutest renditions thanks to the artistic touch of Zack, who specialises in creating some iconic cartoon work using his beloved prickly pear character ‘Beppe’.
From old school classics like Dr. Dre’s The Chronic…
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… to recent masterpieces like Childish Gambino’s Redbone.
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Zack’s album illustrations are great imitations of the original artwork, but they have enough of a personal touch to make you appreciate all the hard work and effort that has gone into them.
One thing’s for sure, Zack and Beppe are big fans of modern hip hop…
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“The collection came about two months ago after I decided to set a personal challenge for myself; to sit down and draw an hour every day on my iPad for one month,” Zack told Lovin Malta.
“The first two weeks were timelapse videos of very random doodles, exploring styles and testing out the capabilities of an app called Procreate,” he began.
“However, during the last two weeks, I decided to introduce Beppe and began experimenting with different styles on him.”
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“As the month came to a close, I wasn’t done with Beppe and decided to continue experimenting with him by combing my interests, cartoons and music… to create what you see today,” he smiles.
Though this may be the first time that Zack has meddled with album covers, it sure isn’t the first time he’s meddled with hip hop.
In fact, his love for the genre runs pretty deep.
A year ago, Zack designed and curated these awesome Nickelodeon and musicians mash-ups with iconic rappers in the mix…
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Including illustrations of some of our favourites, including the much-missed Mac Miller…
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Zack’s illustrations draw inspiration from many places, but his love for hip hop and cartoons makes his latest work some of the best to date and – dare we say it – might even be as good as the albums themselves!
Tag a hip hop stan who’ll definitely want a couple of these
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