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One of my favorite rappers, Chicago's Alex Ludovico, recently asked me to do the artwork for his upcoming album Fame Kills. As with much of what Ludo has done in his career up to this point, the concept for the album was rather unique: the tracklisting would be built around the names of dead celebrities, with the general theme of the album covering the highs and lows of drug use. Ludovico recorded each song first, then came up with individual celebrity names after listening to the tracks. In place of an "A" and "B" side, the album would have a "Cocaine" and "Heroin" side featuring uptempo and downtempo songs respectively.
Given the general theme of celebrity, jacking a concept from Andy Warhol was an easy choice for the album cover. Though it wasn't planned, finding a picture of Ludovico simulating a self-inflicted gunshot tied in nicely with the title of "Fame Kills." Put the two together, and you have the album cover above. It'll get tweaked a little bit before the final release on June 14th, but there you have it.
To go along with the announcement of the album, Ludo passed along a bonus track to help promote Fame Kills, "Bradley Nowell." (Bradley Nowell being the late lead singer of Sublime.) We've discussed in the past that much of what made Ludovico's viewpoint so unique when he first came out has since been co-opted by a fair amount of rappers who have found success in recent years. Yet Ludo's lyrics on this promo track, and much of the other material for the album that I've heard, now stands in stark contrast to the sugar-coated view of drug culture that has become the central theme of pop rap in 2011. Led by Wiz Khalifa, whose recent artistic reinvention might best be described as "Afroman meets LFO," this movement seems to exist in the same consequence-free reality from which malt beverage and lite beer commercials have sprung.
On Bradley Nowell, Ludovico offers a view into an entirely different world, where drugs are used for self medication rather than as party favors and the outcome is a lot messier. It's a dark, lonely place that he describes, but the narrative is far more interesting, and far more powerful, than the alternatives currently being offered by the mainstream:
Alex Ludovico - Bradley Nowell (right-click to d/l)
The beat for Bradley Nowell is from Jamie xx and Gil Scott-Heron's NY is Killing Me. Fame Kills will feature all new, original production.
We'll be putting up more promo material in advance of the Fame Kills June 14th release, but be sure to also check Ludovico's own site, I Miss the Comfort In Being Said, for more updates.
5/17/2011 6:30:00 PM posted by Fresh