I love of all things design, especially architecture and graphic design. There is nothing like amazing well-designed album art work. A good example of good album artwork is the classic Blue Note Records catalog.
A while back, designer Logan Walters created Wu-Tang Clan album covers in the vain of classic Blue Note Records called "Wu-Note." Check out some of his creations below.
That artwork inspired DC's Gerald Watson to collaborate with producer and DJ 2-Tone to create a mash-up of Wu-Tang Clan's classics with Jazz classics. They called the mash-up album "Shaolin Jazz: The 37th Chamber ( download)." At first, I when I saw this, I wasn't sure on how this would sound and that anyone could actually pull it off. However, they do a very good job just like Logan Walters' artwork, which the project was inspired from in the begining.
Astral C.R.E.A.M. (The Pharaoh-Jarel Beatdown Remix) by DJ 2-Tone Jones
"Clan members muscling their way over Donald Byrd’s Lansana’s Priestess in a majestic fashion; Ol’ Dirty crooning demands to a stable of females with the silky, smooth sounds of Lonnie Liston Smith setting the tone; Method Man and Redman riding high on cloud 9 perfectly over Ahmad Jamal’s Poinciana; The GZA droppin’ bombs amidst a juggled Miles Davis loop from Bitches Brew; or even a heart rending interlude featuring John Coltrane’s Equinox playing along to Rae and Meth’s dispute over a Killa Tape..."
It is a well-done mash-up record that invokes the original creative spirits of both hip hop and jazz all on one album. You can grab the entire album here. (caution the album does contain some explicit lyrics)
