What it’s like to create album art for the world's greatest hip-hop artists
- Text by Locke Fitzpatrick
- Photography by Vlad Sepetov
Album art creates a portal through which we can experience a musician’s art and message in a completely different medium. These works add depth to the sounds that permeate through our ears, the music that leaves a lasting impression forever linked to these powerful aesthetics.
Whether it was shifting through your parents’ 12-inches or buying your first CD and poring over the inlay on long car trips, we all have a fond memory of an album where the visuals helped turn a collection of songs into a fully realised world.
Everyone remembers their favourite album differently: the memories of who you were with, what you were doing and what was important to you back then.
Vic Mensa artwork by Vlad Sepetov
Now a new project is letting some the most prolific visual artists in the industry recreate their most treasured album covers, past and present. The Fantasy 12 exhibition poses the same question to 17 visual artists: “If you could re-imagine the album cover for any iconic record (past or present), what would it look like?”. One of those involved in Vlad Sepetov.
Vlad Sepetov is responsible for creating several visual masterpieces cherished by the current generation of music lovers, graphic designers and visual artists.
Donal Thornton’s re-imagining of John Coltrane’s Love Supreme.
You might like
How Japan revolutionised art & photography in the ’60s and ’70s
From Angura to Provoke — A new photobook chronicles the radical avant-garde scene of the postwar period, whose subversion of the medium of image making remains shocking and groundbreaking to this day.
Written by: Miss Rosen
Artifaxing: “We’ve become so addicted to these supercomputers in our hands”
Framing the future — Predominantly publishing on Instagram and X, the account is one of social media’s most prominent archiving pages. We caught up with the mysterious figure behind it to chat about the internet’s past, present and future, finding inspiration and art in the age of AI.
Written by: Isaac Muk
The lacerating catharsis of body suspension in Hong Kong
Self-Ferrying — In one of the world’s most densely packed cities, an underground group of young people are piercing their skin and hanging their bodies with hooks in a shocking exploration of pain and pleasure. Sophie Liu goes to a session to understand why they partake in the extreme underground practice.
Written by: Sophie Liu
What we’re excited for at SXSW 2026
Austin 40 — For the festival’s 40th anniversary edition, we are heading to Texas to join one of the biggest global meetups of the year. We’ve selected a few things to highlight on your schedules.
Written by: Huck
Huck’s 20th Anniversary Issue, Wu-Tang Clan is here
Life is a Journey — Fronted by the legendary Wu-Tang Clan’s spiritual leader RZA, we explore the space in between beginnings and endings, and the things we learn along the way.
Written by: Huck
Clavicular isn’t interesting, really
Dreaming Small — The ‘looksmaxxer’ of the moment has garnered widespread furore over recent controversies. But newsletter columnist Emma Garland asks whether the 20-year-old influencer is actually doing anything that new, and what his rise says about modern turbo-nostalgia’s internet dominance.
Written by: Emma Garland
