A recent phone call has Todd White’s head spinning.
“I just had a call today and learned that I need to put together a mood board for a music video that, potentially, has 16–20 looks,” he says, shocked, over the call. “I’ve never done anything like that before.” As if that’s not wild enough, the tight timeline to which he potentially has to adhere makes it even scarier. “You get these calls sometimes where you have 48 hours to pull something like this together.”
Easy-peasy — at least for a stylist and costume designer of White’s caliber. He’s an industry heavyweight, a creative director who’s been tapped by rap’s leading women like Megan Thee Stallion, Latto, and Coi Leray to curate the iconic looks you see get tens and thousands of likes on social media. No matter whether they’re shutting down the red carpet, gracing the cover of a magazine, or filming a leading commercial, White’s fingerprints can be found all over their fittings —- and he’s just getting started.
It all came from sending one direct message in 2017 that changed his life forever. “I always say yikes because I feel like without that moment I wouldn’t be here,” he says. “I’m so grateful that I just took that chance.”
White didn’t just wake up a few years ago and say, “I want to be a stylist.” Since he was a kid in Cincinnati, he had a serious love for all things fashion. “I’ve always been attracted to art in general, but specifically fashion just because of the glam of it all, luxury designers, and the celebrity aspect.” When he turned 16, he decided to pursue it after graduating from high school.
Getty Image
That’d lead him to Kent State to study fashion merchandising. While he was there, he became even more immersed in fashion, with a job at Forever 21 inspiring him to focus on women’s fashion design. White collaborated with a friend around this time, who studied photography, to create Fashion Haus — a showcase for their creative direction skills. “I kind of came up with this idea with my photographer friend at the time for how we can practice for the future,” says White. “The idea was, I’d style, he’ll shoot, and we’ll come up with concepts for people who want to build a portfolio for modeling or if someone has a brand, and they need some sort of creative concept for an upcoming release.”
At the same time that White was waist deep in preparation for his fashion career, Megan Thee Stallion was exploding onto the rap scene after making “The Houston Cypher” her bitch and dropping her debut EP Make It Hot in 2017. Her aura and lyricism were unmatched. Anybody who was anybody knew that she was next up. White discovered her music around this time and instantly became a fan. Wanting to become a part of her story, he decided to shoot his shot and hop into her Instagram DMs with a proposition.
“I got hip to her music and was really inspired by her,” he says. “One late night, I just randomly decided that I would DM her and see about the possibility of styling her for upcoming shows and projects.” Not anticipating a response, he was shocked when she got back to him pretty quickly. “I can’t remember if it was the next morning or a few hours later, but I know it didn’t take that long,” he recalls. “This was a time when she only had about a hundred thousand followers.”
After that message, he linked up with her a few weeks later. “We met in New York while I was there for fashion week,” he explains. “She had a show, so we connected and vibed. We really hit it off. After that, I would meet her in other cities to dress her or at least help with whatever she would wear.”
As Megan grew in popularity and people started to see her as a fashion icon, White’s styling work got its share of the spotlight. “Our work during that era was huge because of the mega star that she’s turned into,” he says. “That opened up doors for me to get other people’s attention.”
Those “other people” are some of the biggest stars you see on social media and hear on top playlists, like Latto, who he’s draped in custom threads from Onrushw23fh and Michael Schmidt, and Uproxx Cover Star Coi Leray, who he’s laced in Karl Kani. He continuously finds creative ways to capture his clients’ personalities in clothing. To do this, White has an ideal process that helps him come up with these iconic looks.
Paul L. Carter
“Most of the time, I’m turning on some music, and I’m deep diving into whatever creative may have been shared with me by the artist,” he says. “Depending on who you’re working with, you have to dissect what era they’re in at that time so it all makes sense. Then, I’m doing a deep dive. I’m on Pinterest, I’m on Instagram, I’m on TikTok. I want every platform that has anything to do with fashion, and I’m pulling references, I’m taking notes on up-and-coming designers, [and] I’m looking at seeing what is current from a runway show.”
“This process takes me a few days,” he continues. “Once I get that mood board or creative of what I see, I like to hop on the phone with the client to go through everything. Because more times than not, you’ll come up with a really nice mood board and not get any notes or have any notes. And then the day of the shoot comes and the artist, the client can hate everything — which usually only happens if there’s not been any communication.”
White is very open and honest about not just his process, but also how clients can react. There are times when people will love his creative direction. Other times, they can find issues with it — which is par the course when you’re a stylist working with so many different clients. “You want people to like everything that you do, but you’re not going to always get that reaction,” he admits. “Sometimes they hate it, and you have to come up with something completely different, or they love it, but things could be better.”
Tight turnaround times for creativity can also put a damper on the process — but even those can work out too. “I’ve had clients where we’ve had 24 to 48 hours to put everything together, including fitting on the day of the shoot, and things go bad,” he says. “But then somehow, at the end of the day, the shoot ends up turning out great and the client is thrilled. Those are the moments, the stressful days, that I live for.
“Something as simple as an assistant not showing up on time or a UPS delivery arriving late can really throw off a shoot — but when the final shot is wrapped, you’re able to reflect and be excited that you pulled off something nicely together,” he adds.
White has no plans to stop styling anytime soon, even though he’s achieved practically everything he’s ever wanted — but there are even bigger aspirations that he’s been thinking about pursuing. “I would love to get into film -— specifically, horror films,” he says. “In a perfect world, I’d love to do a slasher film and be a part of the costume design and wardrobe.”
The music, drinks, and shared passion for creativity were flowing this weekend as UPROXX Studios and Hennessy hosted The Sound + Vision Awards, a first-of-its-kind awards show honoring the artists driving music culture forward.
Taking place at will.i.am’s FYI Campus, the event was packed with celebrity guests and music tastemakers — gathered together to celebrate the behind-the-scenes visionaries who drive music culture through music video direction, stage choreography, merch design, and so much more.
We’re talking Tino Schaedler, the creative director behind Travis Scott and SAULT’s futuristic on-stage designs; Adrian Martinez, the go-to campaign collaborator of Peso Pluma and Bad Bunny; Sean Kusanagi, the mind behind ODESZA’s stage show; Tyler, the Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw team; and Eric Haze, the artist imagining music culture’s most recognizable logos.
To kick off the event, UPROXX threw a pre-show party fueled by bespoke Hennessy cocktails, eclectic bites crafted by culinary design studio AnanasAnanas, caviar bumps, and stunning floral ice sculptures. Guests mingled while enjoying musical performances from Isaiah Collier and J. Rocc before comedian and host Reggie Watts opened the show, setting the stage for an electrifying celebration filled with surprise appearances and some inspiring storytelling that all shined a light on the often unsung creative heroes in the world of music. LL Cool J stopped by to hand out a Lifetime Achievement award to Haze while ODESZA’s live show lead, Sean Kusanagi, gushed about the privilege of getting to make art that moves people.
Dive deeper into the nominees and honorees by visiting UPROXX’s Sound + Vision platform, and stay tuned for more looks from the inaugural show.
In early December 2020, R&B singer-songwriter Teyana Taylor surprised fans by announcing she was retiring from the music industry. In a caption for her Spotify yearly listener wrap-up post, she thanked fans before admitting to feeling “super under-appreciated” by the industry at large, adding that she felt that there was “little to no real push from the ‘machine.’” Later, she clarified those comments on an Instagram live, sharing: “I’m putting in 110%, and my label is giving me — they’re reciprocating, what, 10% of that.”
Since her debut in 2014, the star had released three critically acclaimed albums, with her 2020 release, Album, reaching No. 1 on the R&B charts. Still, she felt that pushing a career in R&B was leading her down a path to nowhere. “Baby, I gotta do it for my mental health,” she continued on her live. “I have to do it for my emotional health.”
Later, she spoke to Cam Newton for his BET series Sip ‘N Smoke, sharing: “I felt like the label [first Pharrell’s Interscope imprint Star Trak, then Kanye West’s label Good Music] wasn’t really hearing me and seeing me. I felt underappreciated. So, for my mental health, my mental well-being, for my kids, let me just put this on ice for a little [bit],” she said. “It’s not that I retired permanently. It’s more like: I just don’t feel like I want to move another inch for a company.”
Fast-forward to now, and the idea of retirement seems to be the antithesis of Taylor’s multifaceted creative career. In the four years since she announced her exit from making music, she’s poured herself into other lucrative creative endeavors—ones that have positioned her as a leading visionary in not only music but also film and entertainment and as creative director.
“I pour into other artists because I want to give them something I wasn’t able to have,” she told NME about her creative direction career. “There are people that are like, ‘I don’t know how to love because I never received love,’ and then you have people that are like, ‘I want to love harder because I want to give you everything I wasn’t able to have’ and that’s me. Imagine retiring and taking the secret potion [of success] to the grave with me. Why would I do that?”
Last year, Taylor took on the reigns of one of Latto’s biggest performances to date, orchestrating the star’s debut Coachella performance. She shared a BTS video of the process, from overseeing choreography to double-checking stage props and analyzing the timing of graphics. Her production company, The Aunties, also worked with up and-comer Lola Brooke. “We literally only had two four-hour rehearsals, but I had no worries,” Taylor wrote in a video post of Brooke preparing for the set. “‘Cause I knew you could and would kill that sh*t. I want to thank you and ya amazing team for trusting The Aunties and knowing that you were in good hands.”
Her team also co-produced and creative directed Lil Baby’s 2023 tour and worked with Summer Walker for a one-off, intimate show in Atlanta last May. Recently, it was announced that she’d taken on creative direction for Skilla Baby. In a video published near the time of the announcement, you can hear Taylor giving the young rapper advice, telling him that the way he carries himself, the way he releases music, all tell the story of who he is and who he’s going to be as an artist, “you got to embrace it,” she says.
Creative direction has always seeped its way into Taylor’s repertoire, even when she wasn’t running a production company. “I think a lot of people get confused and think it was this pivot,” she told the crowd at CultureCon. “I wasn’t like, ‘Now that I’m not doing it I can help others.’ I was already doing it for other artists behind the scenes since I was 15 years old. It’s healing to me,” she said. She directed the neon-lit, slow-burning video for Coco Jones’ “Caliber,” R&B legend Monica’s video for “Commitment,” and has shared her vision with acts like Bryson Tiller, Macy Gray, and ScHoolboy Q.
She also provided choreography for massive stars, like the intense and jittery moves in Beyoncé’s “Ring the Alarm” video, choreographed by Taylor when she was just 15. Direction has been another hat for the star to wear when she isn’t creating elsewhere. She took on the lead in 2023’s critically acclaimed film, A Thousand And One, or when she’s creative directing for fashion brands like the UK’s Pretty Little Thing. Despite her segue from singing, she has no plan to stop creating, and according to one interview, she hasn’t completely ruled out releasing music.
The star even teased a new track on social media earlier this year. “I’m like a Glade plug-in. I want to be plugged all throughout the room,” she told CULTURED magazine of her multi-hyphenate status. “Why only be locked in this bathroom? Why only have the kitchen smelling good when the whole building can smell good?” As Taylor told Jimmy O. Yang for Interview magazine after her film release, “When I follow my heart, it takes me in the right direction every single time,” and much of that direction has been to become a beacon for other artist on the rise, other creatives who could use direction, other creatives who can learn from what she’s been through in the music industry.
Taylor isn’t only rooting for herself, she’s directing in hopes that other artists “win.” “One thing about working with artists, it’s already there,” Taylor said with regard to creative direction and collaboration during CultureCon. “Some people just handle things differently. I don’t feel like I’m teaching anybody anything. I’m just putting makeup on a face that’s already beautiful. I’m just enhancing what’s already there and bringing it out.”
Dave Meyers has consistently pushed the boundaries of music video artistry throughout his career, collaborating with a diverse range of musicians and bringing his visionary, audacious approach to each link-up. His extensive portfolio spans multiple genres, showcasing his ability to adapt and innovate while maintaining a signature style and finesse.
Though he began his career working with major film companies, his true passion is in music. His work reflects his deep understanding of its impact, combining cutting-edge ideas with a keen sense of appreciation for the art form. Whether crafting futuristic environments, implementing intricate choreography, or crafting surreal visuals, Meyers’ work remains a testament to his pioneering spirit, allowing the visual experience of music to stand as an art in itself.
Take a look at our list of the most lauded Meyers masterpieces to see if your favorites made the cut. (Spoiler: The video he directed for Little Simz’s “Gorilla,” which was picked up a Sound + Vision award for Best Short Form Video, is included.) And also note, Meyers has directed hundreds of videos and we could easily list dozens more, from Billie Eilish and Harry Styles to Sabrina Carpenter and Coldplay.
Missy Elliott – “Get Ur Freak On”
In the first of what would be many collabs with the one and only Missy Elliott, the 2001 cultural staple features exactly what you’d expect from both creatives — visually stunning, boundary-pushing work. “Get Ur Freak On” features a dark, dank setting with porcelain, gargoyle-like figures that eerily watch as Missy and her army-clad dancers groove to Timbaland’s legendary, bhangra-influenced beat. The video’s out-of-this-world distinctiveness would eventually become a core attribute of future Meyers-Missy joints, such as “One Minute Man,” “Work It,” and “Lose Control,” to name a few.
Outkast – “B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)”
Renowned for its eye-popping effects and technicolor chaos, Meyers’ work with Outkast on their Stankonia hit “B.O.B” is an exact reflection of the frenetic, futuristic energy the song purveys. The video’s high-octane choreography and experimental editing techniques immerse viewers in a tornado of vivid imagery and rapid-fire sequences. These hallmarks don’t only enhance the song’s intensity — they highlight both the director and the ATLiens’ bold, creative approaches to their art.
Aaliyah – “More Than A Woman”
Aaliyah’s style effortlessly bridged then-current trends with forward-thinking flair, making each of her projects both timeless and ahead of their time. Meyers’ presentation of her edgy yet elegant aesthetic through his directorial work in “More Than A Woman” underscored just how much more the ingenue had to offer. Stylized set design and superior visual angles — coupled with Aaliyah’s captivating and cool delivery — demonstrate her immense potential. The video was released shortly after the superstar’s tragic death in August 2001, and it left a lasting impression of what could have been.
Usher – “U Remind Me”
Boundaries between reality and fantasy blur seamlessly within Usher’s “U Remind Me.” The 2001 video introduces a bevy of women who echo the faces of Mr. Raymond’s past flings. A standout appearance by his then-longtime love, Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas of TLC fame, creates a poignant link between his personal history and the narrative. The vibrant orange and red backdrop sets a dramatic stage for Usher’s now-iconic solo sequence, where his athleticism and smooth swagger are on full display. This combination of intimate reflection and daring visual style highlights Meyers’ unique ability to intertwine personal connection with artistic imagination, making “U Remind Me” a memorable testament both to Usher’s charm and the power of visionary direction.
Travis Scott – “Sicko Mode”
Throughout Meyers’ work in “Sicko Mode” alongside co-director Travis Scott, viewers are immediately greeted by a vibrant and surreal world that harbors a subtly apocalyptic undertone beneath its colorful veneer — which is perfectly reflective of Scott’s signature branding. Shot in La Flame’s hometown of Houston, the visual swiftly transitions through a whirlwind of scenes, allowing Meyers’ trademark rapid editing style to truly take center stage. The “rager” energy is palpable as Travis Scott and the song’s featured artist Drake oscillate between bizarre scenarios. Each moment bursts with offbeat creativity that bolsters the track’s dynamic intensity — as well as what both artists often bring to the table.
Kendrick Lamar – “Humble”
K. Dot’s “Humble” visual — much like the artist himself — implements a raw, bombastic style that marked a new chapter in his creative evolution. Meyers injects quirky, throwback angles and fisheye lenses into the video, combining old-school techniques with a modern twist. Set design, costumes, and motifs (such as a masterfully figurative callback to Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper) amplify the video’s themes, creating a contrast between opulence and humility. True to Lamar’s no-nonsense style, Meyers delivers a powerfully direct visual experience that perfectly complements the song’s uncompromising message.
N.E.R.D. – “She Wants To Move”
Meyers sets a strikingly bold tone that instantly captures your attention with “She Wants To Move,” thanks to N.E.R.D.’s floating, bopping heads. Outside of a magnetic dance performance from multi-hyphenate Alesha Dixon, the video’s literal interpretation of the lyrics (such as the imaginative depiction of “her ass is a spaceship I want to ride”) amplifies its creativity. The narrative unfolds with a woman fervently rushing to the dance floor, embodying an uninhibited refusal to be restrained in her self-expression through movement. Meyers’ direction expertly blends avant-garde visuals with energetic dance sequences, adding yet another compelling example of his genius.
Normani – “Motivation”
With Meyers at the helm, Normani’s breakout hit “Motivation” allowed her to step into the solo spotlight outside of Fifth Harmony. The video pays homage to the revolutionary music videos that influenced Normani’s own performance style, from Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time” to Beyoncé’s “Crazy In Love.” Not only does “Motivation” celebrate the classics that shaped the dance world, it also marks a moment of cultural revival, as Normani’s envious moves and Meyers’ compelling visuals invite viewers to re-discover the joy of music videos as a moment. Thanks to its nostalgic references and electrifying energy, it beautifully bridges the past with the present, establishing Normani as a promising force on the pop scene, and adding another milestone to Meyers’ directorial resume.
Victoria Monét – “Alright”
Celebrated as a vibrant tribute to the past, present, and future of pop legacies, “Alright” captures the essence of the Jacksons’ recognizable style, while setting the scene for Victoria Monét‘s own star to rise. The video showcases her extraordinary dance abilities with standout choreography that has quickly inspired TikTok challenges, further cementing her as an exemplary talent. Meyers’ innovative camera work accentuates the intricate details of her performance, highlighting the unique qualities that put her above her contemporaries. Through a seamless blend of homage and contemporary edge, “Alright” effectively spotlights Monét’s burgeoning artistry and establishes her as a powerhouse.
Little Simz – “Gorilla”
The visual for Little Simz’s 2023 track “Gorilla” showcases a dazzling array of alternate versions of Simbi, each adorned in diverse outfits ranging from cowboy couture to baseball caps and suits. A secondary music video features an interactive, AI-powered catch powered by Microsoft, which highlights the evolution of technology, while allowing Simz and Meyers’ innovative visions to soar. (“Being able to translate my emotions into my art is a skill I’ve learned to develop over the years,” Simz says of her work with the tech giant.) Despite the cutting-edge technological backdrop, the focus remains firmly on the music, underscoring Simz’s artistic prowess.
Hip-hop has always had a uniform, in one way or another. Versions of rap’s various aesthetics have been locked into popular consciousness far long than the trends themselves were embraced by the genre’s fans in real life.
Picture a rapper in your mind. Perhaps you imagined a 1980s b-boy, replete with a Kangol bucket hat and Adidas tracksuit. Maybe your envisioned rap star has on baggy jeans, sagging just below his waistline, paired with an undershirt and Timberland boots. Or perhaps they’re more modern, decked out in contemporary couture, with colorful braids and facial piercings.
The point is, there’s always been a particular “look” — until someone comes along and disrupts the status quo. This generation’s disruptor is Tyler The Creator, who defied rap’s sartorial conventions — and everything else about contemporary hip-hop culture — from the moment he and Odd Future thrashed their way into the spotlight, right up until now, with his GOLF clothing line redefining hip-hop’s look for a much preppier set of rebels.
GOLF — also affectionately known as “Golf Wang,” a spoonerism of “Wolf Gang,” part of one of Odd Future’s provocative mottos — distinguishes itself from the usual streetwear mainstays with its concentration on clean basics and classic staples, often in pastels or laid-back patterns that suggest throwback casuals without getting stuck in outmoded mindsets about style. The looks take inspiration from the way Tyler dresses himself, and are often even directly designed by the multitalented rapper and producer.
The resulting styles stand out against the backdrop of the perceived studied shagginess of hip-hop fashion, no matter which era you compare it to. Rather than oversized hoodies, GOLF adherents don button-up cardigans with classic prints of hunting dogs that look like the wearer is draped in a painting straight from the wall of the Art Institute of Chicago.
GOLF
The popularity of GOLF has manifested itself — and propagated itself, like a perpetual motion engine — in further collaborations with the legacy brands it was influenced by, like Lacoste and Levi Strauss & Co., as well as streetwear mainstays such as Converse, Vans, and Japanese sandal brand SUICOKE. Such is the demand for Tyler’s distinctive eye for established silhouettes with fanciful details that GOLF was spun off in 2016, offering higher-end products; in 2021, it was spun off into its own standalone luxury brand.
The brand also updates genre staples, cleverly calling back to the Golden Era while updating long-respected mainstays with a youthful edge. For instance, there’s perhaps no one who defines hip-hop more thoroughly than the Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah, and a signature of the Staten Island product’s style has always been Clarks Wallabees. GOLF has collaborated with the 200-year-old shoemaker for a whimsical take on its classic moccasin, with dainty pastels and embossed heart patterns.
This is a reflection of their creator — pun intended — who has long drawn from the history and core tenets of hip-hop, while imbuing it with his own irreverent sense of humor and whimsy. Take, for instance, the presentation of his most recent album, Call Me If You Get Lost. While it’s presented as a hardcore project in the vein of DJ Drama’s Gangsta Grillz mixtapes, it also draws musically from the breezy style of 1960s big band jazz that is perhaps best recognized by modern audiences as the soundtrack of 007 spoof series Austin Powers.
Tyler often cites BET fixtures such as Rap City and 106 & Park as major inspirations, but also freely admits to lampooning their version of hip-hop, if not outright rejecting the archetypes presented on BET during his childhood. And why wouldn’t he? If you know you’re no 50 Cent, Fat Joe, or Jay-Z, you have two options: Either try to be them, or become something different.
GOLF
Growing up in LA County as Tyler did, the options would have been even more constrained. After all, the closest thing to a mainstay on mainstream radio and television from the West Coast in the early 2000s was The Game, who loudly espoused his gang ties — something that’s almost as dangerous to imitate in LA as it is to embrace. So Tyler, who found solace in skate culture and the burgeoning fashion scene in the Fairfax district, decided to do things his own way.
Now, to go to one of Tyler’s concerts or his fan-favorite musical festival, Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival, is to go to a GOLF fashion convention, with thousands of young rap fans adorned in floral prints and pastels, where the usual rap show uniform might have consisted of throwback basketball jerseys or fresh-pressed Dickies work pants and plaid button-up shirts. GOLF’s designs bring a pop of prep, but down to earth, like The Creator himself, who often eschews the trappings of rapper wealth — big, glittering chains and ostentatious, name-brand styling — in favor of the sort of comfy clothes he might have been seen in riding his bike down Fairfax.
That ingenuity and dogged individuality eventually paid off for him, both in the musical success of Odd Future and in the prevailing popularity of his GOLF brand — which, fittingly, centers around the flagship store on Fairfax Ave, the center of the strip where he began his defiant journey of self-definition. That there are so many fans of GOLF worldwide is a testament to how truly relatable that story has been.
Before photographer and Exquisite Eye Studios founder Breyona Holt captured the likes of music phenoms Coco Jones, Halle Bailey, Giveon and bLAck pARty, she got her drive from her hometown of Atlanta.
Currently based in Los Angeles, Holt credits the ATL scene for showing her the grind and hunger that she’d need as a burgeoning artist. It was in the mid-2010s that she kept SoundCloud selections on repeat, listening to acts Smino, Tommy Genesis, Raury, and Awful Records’ Alexandria. Even in her eight years spent on the West Coast, Holt’s mind hasn’t left her southern beginnings, which would come to shape the color theory and contrast in her commercial, editorial and cover artwork.
“We really grew up on dance cultures [in Atlanta], so the music really inspired a lot of the work that I was creating,” Holt tells Uproxx. “When I first started, my photography was very moody, and I think once I moved to LA, over time, I did see that my word got brighter, and I was kind of pulling away from what made me stand out as an artist. I had to take a step back like, ‘Okay, I don’t want to pull too far away like staying into the lines and following the trends and what LA has.’”
But while Holt would depend on her music playlists to soundtrack her mood while editing photos, she credits her father’s early film photography as an influence. Even as a singular visionary, Holt showcases that influence through grainy, analogue photography images of subjects like SZA and Normani.
Giveon
“I [loved] when I was going to his archive and what that would make me feel,” Holt says of her father’s works. “So even though I was mainly shooting on digital cameras at that time, I was trying to mimic that feeling that film made me feel. So the colors that you get with film is just a very organic type of feeling. I would say my dad was really one of my biggest inspirations at that time.”
Through her lens, Holt keeps an eye on individuals across entertainment, but viewers find her photos of Black women to be the most definitive. There’s an artist-to-subject unison where Holt channels the strength of Black womanhood and represents it with dignity. Holt’s portfolio exhibits crisp colors against genuine facial expressions and poses. Most of all, the Black femme energy radiates.
“I believe that it’s very important for us to be seen in a beautiful light and I think that sometimes, when Black women or Black men are the subject, we get the short end of the stick,” Holt says. “Whether it’s how we’re being lit–it doesn’t always represent us in the most powerful or the most uplifting way. Who I am at the core, I love art so much, and I want to make sure that we’re being documented and being seen in the best light, because these things will matter today and to generations to come.”
Since taking the cover art photography for albums like Joyce Wrice’s Overgrown, Coco Jones’ What I Didn’t Tell You, and Amindi’s TWYN, more recently, Holt shot the cover image of Halle Bailey’s new single “Because I Love You.”
“Her voice — she’s literally a siren; her voice is very angelic,” Holt says of Bailey, a fellow Georgia native. “Even just the instruments that she chose to use throughout the record. It was just something so refreshing and something I haven’t really heard before. When you hear a record like that, that inspires the colors you use. Just working with her on that project–the sound and the song is really what inspired the approach of the cover art, and I think it reflects the music video, which was incredible.”
Joyce Wrice
The commanding and vulnerable song would come to reflect Bailey’s confident stance on the artwork, which took on a life of its own. “Even down to the posing, all of those factors matter with the cover art. I’m so happy she chose that photo as the cover,” Holt continues. “I think it was empowering how you know her hands up, her chest out, the arms up–it’s just a very powerful image, and I’m just so happy to have this in my portfolio and to be a part of this.”
On capturing her muses, like the hair-blowing moment-in-time cover of Overgrown or 1970s funk ode on the cover of bLAck pARty’s Hummingbird, Holt likens the interaction to a “dance” between herself and the muse.
“These are real moments and actions for the most part. It’s not like ‘We’re going into these cover arts, and we want you to pose exactly like this,’ because I feel like it would come off a little forced and people would feel that,” she shares. “But these are real moments listening to the music on set, we’re in the vibe — this is a real emotion that they’re expressing through their body, through their face and the color is just there to amplify what’s happening.”
Except for the textured collage on the TWYN backdrop, Holt’s cover art is fairly minimal in practice, keeping the viewers’ gaze on her subjects, and the photography is a visual interpretation of their music.
“When I’m hearing the music, because I really enjoy color theory, it’s about ‘What is this making me feel?’” Holt says. “I think you can communicate a lot through color theory, you can evoke an emotion through the colors that you choose to use. I think using minimal backgrounds, for me, helps you focus on who the subject is. I love a moment where the environment is just an add-on, but like the eyes, the facial expression, the mood of the body language in the model, all of that really matters to me.”
Halle
Along with her photography, Holt calls it a “greater goal” to take her still images to the screen as a filmmaker, especially since she’s built her portfolio as a music video director and creative director.
“Although I started off, and I’m able to grasp people’s attention through my photography, I think people have taken a chance with me when it comes to these music videos,” Holt says of her budding path in filmmaking. “[I’ve] even shocked myself at what I’m able to create as a director, but as I continue to explore with music videos, I would love to grow in that field and do more short films and let that grow, as well, into longform video, movies and things like that.”
In continuing to document the culture, Holt also has her hands in tactile fashion projects under her Exquisite Eye banner, but presenting Blackness in an authentic lens remains integral to her purpose. Holt embraces her roots, and it shows in her life’s work.
“I just love my culture. I love being Black and I love how we always create such beautiful art no matter what,” she says. “To be in this day and age and be able to have the internet and be able to share my art and people gravitate to it, or they feel inspired by it, I’m just doing this for the bigger picture.”
Tino Schaedler has a vision for the future of concerts: It involves embracing the wonder, joy, and community at the heart of the live performance.
The German-born jack of all trades began his artistic career in architecture, before moving into film, brand design, and more. Now? He’s a go-to collaborator for many of the most inventive artists in music.
His work with acts like SAULT, André 3000, Travis Scott, and more earned him an honor at the 2024 UPROXX Sound + Vision Awards as the Vanguard Virtoso, which “highlights visionary collaborators who empower artists and help drive music culture forward.” It’s clear through his varied approaches to stagecraft that there’s no one-size-fits-all method to his creations.
“The music industry has changed a lot since the pandemic, and there’s interest in really trying to create new types of live experiences and new types of experiences in general that are beyond stadium and arena tours,” Schaedler explained to UPROXX.
As such, he, and the artists he works with, have put an emphasis on live and lived experiences. Schaedler says that these aren’t disposable concerts where the lights go down, the band comes on, they play some songs, and they leave. He wants to re-imagine the way concerts can be experienced.
“We’re all on our phones all the time,” Schaedler explains. “I want to make bodies our interface again, putting people into the moment and being present.”
Where does your initial passion for art — or more broadly, creativity — stem from?
My mom really laid the foundation from an early age. I would come home from school and there was always paper and pens on the floor. My whole childhood, I remember just drawing. That was all I was doing. I don’t think it was a conscious decision, but I think she also built a little bit of a reward system around it, because she always made me draw for everyone: grandparents, aunts and uncles, and everyone got a little drawing from me. There was always appreciation around it. It really built this image where I always felt like I was an artist. There was no other choice. It was so natural for me because it was my passion, and I think there was a persona that was created around that from that early age on.
Did you go to school for art? What was your focus?
I studied architecture. That was a little bit of a compromise in the beginning, and my dad really pushed me for it. He was a real estate developer and he was like, “Do you want to do art? At least have it be something that has a bit of an economy behind it.” Back then, I always thought of it as a compromise, but in hindsight, it wasn’t really, because studying architecture gives you such a broad scope of education, from understanding the technical side of architecture to the spatial understanding and spatial imagination to art history, architectural history, and all of that.
A lot of what I do is still fed from that time, and it really influenced the way that I think about things. I studied at Berlin and then did two years at UC Berkeley, and there I learned about this landscape architect named Lawrence Helpin. It was a long time ago and computers were a new thing. I think I got my first email while I was at Berkeley, and I learned about this landscape architect that did a lot of design on the campus there. He was designing using a storyboard. He used a storyboard to design landscape architecture. Architecture was never an abstract shape. It was always a combination or a relationship between a camera movement and perception. I always thought about architecture in a very cinematic way
And that’s a pretty good way to describe what you do now, right?
When I have meetings with new clients and I explain the way that I think about things, it’s relevant because I studied architecture and that’s all about space and the physical and psychological dimension of space. If you go to the Pantheon in Rome, there’s an emotion attached to that. Creating space has a kind of poetic potential to really evoke an emotion.
Getty Image
What did you do after graduating?
After graduating, I went into film and I worked on big movies: Harry Potter, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, V For Vendetta. I had this high school teacher who inspired me to get into film. In Germany, you have to write an essay to graduate high school, and I wrote mine on [Stanley] Kubrick and [Alfred] Hitchcock. It was always film, it was about thinking about architecture through the camera lens, then moving into film. It was a very natural progression.
I did most of those films in London, then moved to California and did more films while moving into music videos and commercials. I also became a partner in this experiential agency, which is all about consumer journey choreography and creating experiences. What I do now with SAULT is really about those three things. It’s space, it’s design, it’s storytelling. It combines movement and experience. The music industry has changed a lot since the pandemic, and there’s interest in really trying to create new types of live experiences and new types of experiences in general that are beyond stadium and arena tours.
I learned from some of the brand experiences that I did for Nike or for Apple or for Beats. There are some interesting ideas in there, especially when paired with the shift towards immersive experiences. The music industry is open and hungry for new ways of experiencing things. We’re all on our phones all the time. I want to make bodies our interface again, putting people into the moment and being present. There are things that I’ve been super interested in for the past 10 years.
What was that challenge for you in helping SAULT be the band that they wanted to be in a live setting?
It was a super interesting setup. I mean, I got the first call about a year ago in October. I got that call from Inflo, and there was an immediate connection of various interests about creating something very special, creating something that puts people into the moment. The whole mystique that they’ve built around the band was super interesting to me. I didn’t know him before. A mutual friend connected us, but from the first moment, there was this really deep connection with Flo. We were on the phone for the next two months.
I did a few trips to London and it was just a beautiful exchange. Everything was created in terms of the design, and the programming came through us talking and figuring out how we could do something that is different than your traditional show. Normally, you wait in the main space, suddenly the light goes off and the band performs, and then the light comes on again and everyone leaves. The idea was about creating a world that’s very cinematic. The idea of world building is inherent to movies, so when you’re working on Harry Potter, you design the whole world that fits these characters. World-building is an interesting aspect that I think is very relevant for music today.
A lot of musicians do it just by the persona that they create. Think about Daft Punk, Doja Cat, or Lady Gaga. We wanted to take that to the next level and not just have something on the stage that you look at. We wanted to create something that you walk through that you experience where you have a much stronger interaction with it. It wasn’t a traditional linear relationship of the audience looking at a stage, because we redefined it by putting the stage in the middle of the whole crowd. You’re walking through the stage, everything becomes one. The whole space is the stage, basically.
Do you have an overarching philosophy to the way you approach these projects? Or are you more chameleonic in the way that you work with the artist’s desires?
I think it’s a little bit of both. There are some artists where you just have to be what they need, and I can deliver that. I worked with Tyla recently and they just needed help with a few festival shows, and we just designed something that can live on the festival stage.
Then there are other artists like André 3000. I helped him with his last tour, and that one was super minimal. We decided on that because he just wants you to put your phone away and listen. We did that one with a laser that shoots through this glass of water, and it’s so iconic. André is always about, “Let’s strip away, let’s strip away.”
Getty Image
What do you think stage design can, or is meant to, achieve?
When I worked in commercials or music videos, there were always people asking me why I didn’t move more into directing music videos or commercials. There are so many young people, and I don’t think I have anything unique to offer. I can do a good job, but I don’t have anything that no one else has. Regarding music and what I bring to it, though, I think I have a unique thing to give. In an ideal scenario, we all want to align our life purpose. We all want to feel like what we do has an impact.
In an ideal scenario, you come to a point where your gift or your skill and your passion all align with some kind of ability to give back or to create something meaningful. I love creating these moments that people remember for a long time.
I was at Tate Modern a few weeks ago. I was invited by Little Simz, and during that panel afterwards, a lot of people came to me and spoke about my work. There are still a lot of people that hit me up about SAULT. That alone is proof that something really special was created. So, that is the sweet spot that I want to be in. Not every project offers that, but I think it’s getting to be the case more and more, because more artists are realizing that they can actually do something different. They can push it, and there’s almost a new typology of music experiences evolving.
“It takes a team” isn’t just a saying to ODESZA. As one of the biggest electronic acts in the world, Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight have built up their global following by surrounding themselves with people who not only believe in their vision but help bring it to life. In fact, the band’s creative leads are very much considered members of ODESZA themselves.
Particularly, SOUND+VISION Award honoree Sean Kusanagi. As a longtime friend of Mills and Knight dating back to their college years at Western Washington University, Kusanagi has played a pivotal role in the creation and evolution of ODESZA.
“I actually ended up introducing Harrison and Clay because I knew both of them and that they were doing separate projects,” Kusanagi says. “Clay was doing BeachesBeaches, and Harrison doing Catacombkid. I was living with Clay at the time, kind of near our senior year, and I told the guys they should really just get together and play some music.”
ODESZA
When he encouraged Mills and Knight to meet, Kusanagi didn’t envision that the pair would end up forming one of the most renowned touring acts in the country or that it would forever change the course of his own career. Early gigs in ODESZA’s career saw Kusanagi wearing all sorts of different hats, from touring with the band, to playing guitar on the duo’s 2012 album Summer’s Gone, to mapping lasers on the band’s Last Goodbye tour, Kusanagi evolved as a powerhouse creative force in his own right as the band ascended to stardom.
“My role is to make sure that all of the creative elements are working together,” Kusanagi says of his current role in ODESZA. “We’ve always been obsessed with cinema and movies and building cinematic-type experiences. And the show’s no different. It is like we’re telling a narrative, we’re really building a movie on stage for people to see.”
ODESZA
“Music drives everything and being able to work so closely with my friends Harrison and Clay and Luke [Tanaka] thinking as a whole cohesive entity is where just a lot of the magic happens,” Kusanagi continues. “Sometimes it’s a visual that sparks the audio and sometimes the audio sparks a visual or a laser moment or a pyro moment or a costuming moment or a choreography moment. My goal is to just build a world on the stage so that when people show up, they feel immersed for those 90 minutes to two hours and feel like they live inside of this ‘ODESZA world’ that can only exist right then and there.”
We asked Kusanagi what he believes to be the main innovative components that have changed ODESZA’s live shows over the past two decades.
So this was one of the first elements that we really brought to life, dating back to around 2015 or 2016. ODESZA being an electronic group, they wanted to bring live orchestral and musicality to a show that is consistently made of computers and electronic elements. I think a lot of people can agree that it’s not very interesting to just watch someone behind a computer. So it probed the question of how do you bring to life all the elements of their music, which is so layered and so textural and has so many different types of worldly samples? That was really the first thing that excited us.
The first thing that we tried was adding some drumming. Harrison and Clay initially just started drumming on stage, actually bringing a drum kit up there. They brought a SPD, toms, and crash to just add some of those initial energies since that’s all they could afford at the time.
We kept wanting to make it bigger though as the shows got bigger. It’s not enough just for the two of them to drum. So we brought on a drumline to represent so many of these rhythms and styles. It was almost 10 years ago now when we partnered with the Colorado University drumline, and what’s fun is some of those members are still with us now.
We wanted to then keep building on ODESZA’s cinematic musicality. That’s where we thought to add string components as well, and we brought strings to one of ODESZA’s first Red Rocks headlining shows. That was the moment where we started realizing there are all these opportunities to build not just around these electronic moments, but around these musical and orchestral moments and make it come to life. ODESZA built on this “cinematic-ness,” which was and continues to be very future-thinking.
Creative Innovation 2: Pyrotechnics
ODESZA
It’s really easy to just put an explosion within a show because we have money and it’ll just make the crowd hyped. But for us, it comes back to the question, “What’s motivating it? Why are we doing it?” We want to think about why we’re doing this and why it makes sense to add any sort of creative element into the live show.
So for us, yes, pyro is a huge part of our show, but we also want to make sure that it feels motivated for how everything is working together. I’ll use “Loyal” as an example here, where we have this army of drummers on the stage and we have this king that is rising from the dead. They’re bringing this loyal king to life. And in that moment we’re like, oh, fire makes so much sense here to add on the stage just because we have this very almost war battle scene happening, both with the drum line and the visuals. The fire is helping accent that.
We use pyro to help tell the story of this ODESZA world that we’re in.
One of the challenges that comes with pyro is the many different stage formats we find ourselves in. With the drumline out, we have a lot of people onstage, sometimes 16 people, while also trying to set off pyrotechnics. We had to work a lot on the choreography or reworked stage positionings to make it work on certain stages for sure. The whole thing gets underestimated, which is why you also don’t see it that often.
We’ve incorporated pyrotechnics for the past five or so years, but it was The Last Goodbye tour where we really dove in and built time code around our pyrotechnics and our special effects like confetti. We had every second planned. Every moment is planned down to the millisecond when it’s happening and how it’s firing and how it’s being shot off in the show.
Creative Innovation 3: Visuals
ODESZA
The mastermind behind the visuals is my partner Luke Tanaka. He’s the lead on a lot of it, but he works with 30-40 artists from all over the world to create the visuals at ODESZA’s shows.
We get to map out the show plan, and what type of visuals for each song, and then work with these really talented artists across the globe to craft the narrative behind every show. This is really Harrison, Clay, Luke, and myself figuring out what type of style we want the visuals to be. Is it animation? Is it Cinema 4D, is it unreal? Is it after-effects?
What type of program do we want to use? What type of visual artists do we want to collaborate with?
An example is our work with Aeforia, this amazing artist up from Canada who did a lot of the album design and album cover design. He built these characters and then we started using these characters as the main representation of the Last Goodbye souls that you actually saw as inflatables up at the Gorge and are also just kind the narrative tie between everything in the show.
We really try to stay away from building your classic three-part loop for each song, which you can see the format of a lot of times, and instead get into what the actual narrative of this show is, how do all these visuals play and intersect together? And then most importantly, what type of visual wants to represent the music in a whole entirely new way so when someone shows up to the show they experience a song and it evokes something different for them and allows them to hear it in a whole new light.
Creative Innovation 4: Lasers
ODESZA
We’ve used lasers for a long time, but we specifically leveled them up for The Last Goodbye tour.
Specifically, the lasers that we brought into the Gorge were a very unique new thing. I think one thing that we’ve always tried to do is if we’re at a special venue [like The Gorge] we want it to feel extra special. So we wanted to see how we could use lasers in a new way.
We actually put lasers behind the crowd and shot them all the way across the Gorge, with more wattage and lasers than what has ever been at that venue before. Projecting them across the crowd and into the background created this expansive place for people. The amount we used was the first time that that’s ever been done in that capacity at that venue.
I think that’s also the main ethos for every single one of these things. How has it been done in the past and how can we break that mold and how can we recontextualize it or rebuild it in a way that feels like it has always belonged in this set? And even if it is pushing the boundaries of the visuals or the world-building or the lasers or the pyro, the number one thing for all of it is that it works together.
If it doesn’t work together, then it all falls apart. I actually think one of the most innovative things is just building this from friends and building this as a friend group, who have been together since the very beginning and knowing that these are some of the biggest shows. I never thought that I would be in this position of creative directing before Beyonce at Coachella, but to be able to look over and see myself doing this with my friends while sharing a stage with Beyonce or Eminem, and do three nights sold out at the Gorge, that’s everyone’s dream.
When it comes to the names that defined rap music in the 1980s, many are obvious: Public Enemy, LL Cool J, EPMD. But some names that are perhaps equally important, yet not often as easily recognizable, are those of the unsung heroes who helped make those names the legends they are today. That includes graphic designer and art director Eric Haze, who perhaps literally helped make those names and others legendary with his distinctive logos and art direction. Long before tablets and smartphones let designers build projects in the palms of their hands, Haze made a name for himself with the tools of the trade he honed bombing graffiti on New York City subway cars and attending the School of Visual Arts.
He’s since applied those skills on designing memorable album covers for the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J, iconic logos for the likes of EPMD and Tommy Boy Records, and more recently, updating the branding for Blink-182 — which he also did, once upon a time, for Public Enemy, in a story that has since been garbled. He set the record straight in an expansive Zoom call with me to discuss his Uproxx Sound + Vision Awards Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as telling some of his favorite stories behind these iconic designs and his first-of-its-kind installation at The Sphere in Las Vegas. If you didn’t know Haze before, it’s time to get familiar with him and his 45-year mission to bring hip-hop sensibilities to the world of design.
We’re here to talk about some of your most iconic logo work, design work, and you have so much of it. I’m almost tempted to ask you where do you want to start, but I know where I want to start. So we’re going to start with my favorite logo, which is the EPMD logo
Truth is, when asked, I always say that I do not play favorites with my work and my logos. They’re all my children. I try and love them equally, but EPMD is the one. To me, EPMD is the one, and it’s the one for a handful of reasons, mostly because it was from scratch off the dome. That’s not a typeset, that’s not typeface. It’s been reinterpreted by a handful of other designers after me. If you look at some of the later album covers, people tried to recreate it with typefaces and it ain’t it.
I always looked at Run-D.M.C. as the quintessential hip-hop logo, and EPMD really represented me saying, “How do I take that foundational vibe, look, strength, oldness, and push it to another level, and perhaps, ideally, a more original and unique way?”
Eric Haze
Obviously, this next one is very near and dear to my heart. As much as this organization has been a frustration to hip-hop fans for the last several decades, that Tommy Boy logo is untouchable. You could take any particular element out of it and you would know it was Tommy Boy.
Tommy Boy was one of the last logos I did prior to the Macintosh and having my own desktop tools to create typesetting. So the actual typography was still created on what was then an IBM Linatronic typesetting. So typesetting was still IBM based. That said, it was also one of the last significant pieces of identity design I did in New York before pulling the plug and moving to California.
So Tommy Boy was ’89, ’90, and there’s some interesting backstories, which is that Tommy Silverman himself reached out to me, and in all fairness, I redesigned and updated the logo from the wimpy press type version that had predated me. There was a Tommy Boy logo with three dancers. If you go back and look at the early 12-inch sleeves or iterations of it, it’s all press type. But the characters all had afros and bell-bottoms, and they were straight press type physical characters. So I re-imagined the typography and the lettering and the central identity of the type itself. And then I set about hand tailoring the characters to not being so dated. I think I spun them in different directions and placed them differently. So again, in all fairness to history, I was handed a deflated ball and I pumped some air back into it.
The other thing that’s very significant in my evolution was up to that point, again, everything was sort of, you didn’t have the kind of one-stop shopping and command over everything that Mac eventually gave you in the nineties. I had to send out to one source for type setting. I had to send out photo stats, and it was a physical process. When I delivered it to Tommy himself, he said to me, “Look, great job. I’m happy with the result, but I want to pull your card on something, which is that you’re charging me for your time, not just the result. Clearly, there’s a type setting bill, you’re charging me for the effort it takes to get the result. Well, the good news and the bad news is the computer is about to eliminate and explode the notion of time and you will no longer be able to charge for your time, just the results that the computer will allow in a more efficient way. So I advise you to get with the computer before the world passes you by.”
I did not own a Mac yet, and I took it to heart, and he was absolutely right. It was a year or two later when I arrived in California that I got my Quadra 700 and set about trying to do in Quark [QuarkXPress desktop publishing software] and the clunky-type suitcases, what I had done the hard way prior to the Mac. So it was that bit of advice that suited me well at that era of transition.
Eric Haze
I could talk about this all day, trust me. Let’s talk about LL. LL Cool J.
If EPMD was pushing a pre-existing thing, pushing the envelope of trying to build on something that I felt was strong already, LL was a much different scenario. And it predated EPMD by a year, if not more. The Bigger And Deffer album cover wasn’t my first album cover, but it was the first one I was given total autonomy for — where I was the art director and the designer, and responsible start to finish for delivering it, from meeting with LL to delivering it to CBS. The most key thing about that, that is so obvious I barely have to say it, was that I don’t even know if it was called “hip-hop” yet, it was just rap music. And rap music had made its bones and set its foundation on sampling.
Rap music was the true post-modern essence of “reappropriation to recontextualize.” And through that process to where we once were outsiders throwing stones at the castle, now we were incorporating the machinery and methodology of the power structure to shift the power structure and take some of these things back home with us.
LL was the first true high-level embodiment of my desire to find a visual parallel to what I understood happening on a sonic level.
So yes, the LL Cool J logo had beg, borrow, and stole from the Cool Cigarettes logo, which was a hood staple — but most importantly, I was trying to put under the light the notion that there could be a visual sampling that complemented the audio sampling. LL was the first big league opportunity I had to apply that in the market, the real world, and on cultural capital that was bigger than either LL or myself individually.
Eric Haze
I wonder if you said this particular train of thought to him at any point. Because if you did, that would explain LL’s iconic Gap FUBU commercial. Because that’s a moment that defined my generation’s attitude towards all this. Like, get in and make them do things our way, instead of trying to prove ourselves to them. Walk in the front and kick open the back door for the homies.
Well, I’ll share one of my most magic hip-hop moments, which I know I told (Uproxx co-founder) Jarret (Myer) and these guys. When LL first came to my studio, we didn’t know each other, but he knew I was a graffiti artist. He said, “Come on Haze, I know you could hook up some dope graffiti shit.” And my response was, “Come on, L, this ain’t a breakbeats album, we got to come harder than that.” That was the low-hanging fruit of hip-hop. I was on a personal mission as a typographer and logo designer to show and prove I could reinvent the wheel in a more sophisticated, site-specific fashion. But when I first put the album cover in front of him and Def Jam, when I swiped it from CBS drawer, he gave me the ultimate hip-hop compliment I’ve ever gotten in my life, which was, “Yo, this looks like getting paid, son.”
So Jarret’s going to kill me if I don’t ask about it, because he was like, this is a chance to clear it up. You know exactly where this was going.
Real simple, and I always go out of my way to say this. I’ve never once in my life taken credit for the original design of the PE logo. It was my first album cover art direction. And I met with Glenn and the group, Chuck gave me his original loose sketch of the logo. I had a proof sheet, photographs. From there, I was the art director. I chose and cropped the photo and I typeset the logo. I took Chuck’s rough sketch and great idea, and I executed it in a professional fashion.
I cleaned up the target and the guy, and I had the military typeset again on IBM Linatronic. I still have the type galley with Public Enemy on it, dated, client, Eric, 1987. However, I have been miscredited with the design of the logo throughout my own career. I have never had a conversation with Chuck about it. I’m sure he probably thinks that I have claimed something that I didn’t. His original design is in the Smithsonian.
And that’s not worth unpacking at an award ceremony, that’s just for you and me. The truth, the punctuation I will give to that, is that you’ve never heard me talk about the Public Enemy logo in the last 30 years. It’s not in my portfolio, it’s not on my website. I have erred to the side of caution, taking no credit for something I had a lot to do with to avoid any controversy. Because, frankly, I got more fucking feathers in my cap than I could wear at any given time, even without Public Enemy.
Getty Image
Let’s get into something a little more recent. You redesigned the Blink-182 logo.
I did. You know what? Travis called me up last year and said, “Yo, will you do our album cover? I just want your shit, man. I want your unfiltered hand style, no frills, no bells and whistles, just the basic.”
So for a long time I considered being an art director my primary function. I’m a designer, but I’m an art director. You come to me to help you build your identity for your project and your market. It’s not fundamentally about me. I may get some fingerprints and I may get off on it somehow, but the gig isn’t about me. The gig is servicing your identity. When the Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head was all you’d see on bumper stickers and shit, and it put my handwriting on the map. People would ask me all the time, “Yo, can you do it in Beastie Boy style?” And I’d say, “No.” Why would I play my client myself by repeating myself?
It was only the last 10 or so years that my studio manager and I said, “Wait a minute. You know what? Not only was it so long ago in time now that’s a pointless sentiment, but you know what? Actually, this is my style. This is my hand lettering that I blessed them with.” And I’m not the art director anymore, trying to be everything to everyone and switch it up every time. Now, I’m an artist who does that stuff, but this is my core style. And if people are coming to me for my core style, that’s great. Let’s lean into it and stand on it. Instead of feeling like it’s some antiquated shit we can’t revisit.
Once I hit that switch and I was like, “Yo, we use it for my brand. If that’s what you want for your brand. Everybody knows where it comes from. And it’s my signifier. It’s not their signifier.” So we’ve been doing that for my brand and our collabos and product and Haze brand for long enough that when Travis said, “Yo, I want the Beastie Boys style.” We were like, “Bet. You want my shit. You got it.” Frankly, I get to charge 100 times more than I did 30 years ago. And what felt like a choice and an effort to make it look that way in the Check Your Head era in ’91, 30 years later that’s just my shit. I can do it standing on my head.
I guess I will qualify it with this, which is that I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t a fucking A-list banger. I’m not going to play myself by putting my magic dust in a shitty meal nobody’s going to eat. I know Blink 182, motherfuckers are going to eat it up, we’re going to knock this out the park, and I just play my position and hope for the best. I guess what I’m saying is: the Travis Barker thing is at a stage that feels much different to me, where I am doing these things because they’re a great fit. I’m working with people I like and respect, who like and respect me, and we’re both bringing something to the table. So the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It’s the same job, but it’s a collaboration now. It’s not a service.
Then of course you get to do your thing on probably the biggest canvas any graffiti artist has ever had. Las Vegas, baby. The Sphere. So what does that mean to you as an artist, as the representative of a brand, as a culmination of 30 years of professional building to have something that nobody else would even have had this opportunity for?
First of all, yes, you were right. It takes 45 years to be able to knock something out in 45 seconds. It’s what I always call a shooter’s mentality. “Give me the ball, coach. Put me in, give me the ball. I want to take the shot.” But the fact is, if you’re not practicing that shot for 10 years before, nobody’s going to even throw you the ball, let alone allow you to take the shot. I got thrown the ball to take the shot. And to your point, it must say something about where I’ve arrived at that somebody like that gives me the first shot.
I got a call sitting in bed on New Year’s Day asking me if I was up for The Sphere, delivering it in six days. New format, new medium, new technology, new clients, working with a programmer, needing NFL approval. And I leaned away. I was like, my first instinct was, “You know what? I don’t even know what I’m getting into here, and I’m not sure I want to start the first morning of the first day of the year with my pants on fire for this.” My assistant was like, “Yo, you don’t fucking get it. This is huge.” And I was traveling and all this stuff, and I was like, “You know what? Fuck it. Let’s do it. Let’s just not embarrass ourselves here.” Really. I was like, “Let’s catch this check and not embarrass ourselves. We’re taking the gig.”
And we worked flat on a flat screen with programmers. It never looked right to me. I kept saying every day, “Yo, it’s flat. It needs more layers, it needs more depth, it needs more motion.” I had something in my head. And all I kept hearing was like, “Yeah, well, we will do that. You’ll see that next time and you’ll see that next.” And I swear, 48 hours before it went live, I wasn’t happy with it.
Faith in the unknown is one of my gifts. It came together and I was beyond pleasantly surprised. To be honest, I just didn’t want to drop the ball. I wasn’t focusing on setting the world on fire. And I got more love and likes and response from that than I got from the US ski team. I did the fucking Olympics. My fucking logo was on USA, United States of America, Worldwide TV. That was a much bigger moment to me personally than a tech flip for a week in Vegas. But it just hit the zeitgeist on the fucking nose.
Obviously, my last question that I love to ask, this is my favorite thing to do every time, because as a journalist, I know I got to ask artists of all stripes, the same questions that they hear all the time. They got to tell the same stories. You got to answer all the same questions. So my thing is I like to go, if you had a question, if you got to be the one making up the questions, if there was something you wanted to hear you talk about that you never get to talk about, that is way more interesting to you than any of things anybody’s ever asked you, what would that thing be? What would you want to talk about?
I would want to talk about how coming from the mean streets of New York that I grew up on, and the culture of graffiti and hip-hop that I grew up on, we were never taught to play nice in the sandbox. And that generosity of spirit was something that came to me late in life. What I came to understand was that I spent 50 years focused on being a great artist and chasing the word “yes,” and I had an awakening in my 50s. I got married when I was 50 and finally had a spiritual center and a partner, and a home, and an ability to start looking at myself and deciding that the icing on the cake of being a great artist was to be a great human being too.
I began focusing on being a better person and unpacking the parts of myself or my habits or my mentality or my character that, you know what? It wasn’t too late to change if I didn’t like them or if there was plenty of room for improvement. That just because I had become an arguably great artist, didn’t mean that there wasn’t still a lot of room for improvement as a human being. And once I had that revelation and also realized that when you build a brand, you’re also building an island.
I started to understand that people’s perception of my success created distance and that it was on me to close the distance, not on them. That yes, I had built a great island called Haze, but that I wanted to make sure that everybody knew they were welcome on my island and that I hope they invited me to theirs too. And that sentiment of generosity and connectivity was what allowed me to take my whole shit to another level as an artist brand and human being, hand-in-hand.
When Creative Director Adrian Martinez started out in the music industry, he had no idea where he’d be today. Doing what he describes as “bits and pieces of the creative process” and capturing content for artists via video and photography was his first glimpse into a future he hadn’t necessarily planned for. “I was doing like a ton of video editing. I got into graphic design,” he tells UPROXX. “I started working on cover art from there. I got into music video direction after a couple of years of being around artists and networking.” Those connections he made combined with a comfort behind the camera – not to mention the symbiotic relationship he was able to easily build between himself and musicians – “snowballed into other opportunities” and he was able to put on live shows for artists.
Fast-forward to now, Martinez has worked with the likes of Rauw Alejandro, Peso Pluma, Bad Bunny, 6lack, and more to bring their creative ideas to life. From 3D animation to branding merch design and experience production, his creative house, STURDY, has become a one-stop shop for musicians who want start to finish creative handling of their campaigns.
Ahead of receiving the Spotlight Award for excellence in creative direction at the upcoming UPROXX event for the Sound + Vision Awards, we spoke to Martinez about how his creative intuition and love for music pushed him into a self-made career and what he’s most excited to create next.
Is there an early project you worked on that cemented your desire to be a creative director?
I got an opportunity, which was at the end of 2016, to work with PARTYNEXTDOOR on his second tour. He let me do the creative behind it, let me design it. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was just going to figure it out and had good people working around me on all the other departments of the show. From there, I found out that I enjoyed working on the design side of the show more than capturing it. As a creative director, I’m able to speak to all these different people that work across different mediums and take in different parts of what a campaign is these days — which is everything from cover art to marketing ad mats, tour posters, the music videos, all the way through to the stage design and lighting direction.
When you say you enjoyed the design side more than the capture side, what was it about that experience with PARTYNEXTDOOR that led you to that realization?
On a very basic level, I felt that when I was taking photos, I didn’t enjoy how he was lit. I didn’t enjoy how the lighting was captured. It always felt a little messy and uncurated and it felt like the lights were just there to be there. I felt like he should be standing here at this part of the show or he should interact this way and the lighting should be hitting him from the back so that he has a good rim light. That PARTY show I’m talking about was much more a trial than a success, but it made me open my eyes to what was possible and where I wanted to go.
Do you always work on every aspect of a campaign and all the different facets you mentioned, from tour posters to set designs?
My goal is to be able to do the campaign and its live side. I feel like that’s where the needle really gets threaded in the best way and where I have found the most success. People always do want to piece it together and I understand there are other creatives involved before I get in the mix, there are always other people helping execute things and I think it’s important to be open to the collaborative process. But I try to either keep it to the whole campaign or the whole live show, and if that’s separate, that’s cool. But ideally, like I said, it’s kind of like the more global approach.
You mentioned PARTYNEXTDOOR felt like a trial. What was you first success?
Four or five months later I got an opportunity to work on another OVO SOUND artist’s show. It was Majid Jordan playing at Coachella. That was April of 2017. I felt that through that process I got to know the artists very well. I had a sense of confidence and comfort in being able to ask questions and try to assert my point of view much more than just subsiding to what they wanted.
Also, in between the PARTY tour and the Coachella show I had met a couple of guys that ended up being a co-founder of this company I run called STURDY, and they were really focused on the visual side of the shows. They were doing 3D and 2D animation and I was with them almost every single day. I was soaking up so much. I learned things like a pixel map which is what you use to map content onto screens properly. I picked up new software and started messing with After Effects and seeing what I could do with 3D software. I didn’t realize that it was the very beginning of what we’re doing now. When I look back it’s still one of the shows that stands out to me because it felt like although we were young kids having fun, we were also really into the process. We were very dedicated.
Tell me more about Sturdy, how did it come together?
We got to work on a lot of shows really quickly after that, and we started getting opportunities to do visuals and get involved in the creative side of artists’ careers. Things were kind of moving for us pretty rapidly in the summer of 2017. We got to work on Kendrick Lamar’s tour. It was a three-day turnaround on some visuals but we were super stoked and it was awesome to be able to work with Dave [Friley] and Kendrick on that. It gave us a little bit more validation within the industry. And also, I needed more confidence to keep pushing and keep going.
By summer of 2018, we got to work on Drake’s tour visuals and we’re seeing stuff happen at a really high level and felt like we were actually starting to compete with bigger companies and being looked at by bigger clients. We realized that if we were just a bunch of ragtag freelancers, it was just never gonna turn into something real. We also knew we really enjoyed working together and that our team dynamic paired with finding a name that we felt we could stand behind made us want to make it official. By the fall of 2018, we had made STURDY an official thing.
LVRN/Interscope
The position of Creative Director can be opaque in some cases, especially when you’re doing so many jobs and wearing so many hats. How do you describe your work to people?
I always say a creative director is not just the person who says this is how we’re going to do it. You’re actually directing creatives. That is what you’re doing. So that means you have a bunch of people that you need to be able to speak to in a way they’ll understand. That translates to the way that they look at the execution, the buttons that they press on their side, and the way they process concepts. And then you have to do that in a bunch of different ways with all these different people. Same with a live show. You have the guys who do visuals, and then you have the guys who are in charge of rigging and that are in charge of making sure that the building can withstand the weight of the screens that are hanging or the lights or whatever. And then you have the lighting designer and you have to make sure that they’re doing things in a way so that the really cool designs and renders that you have in 3D are realistic in real life and the list goes on.
What are you excited to create next?
Without getting super specific, I’ve just got some really exciting tours coming out this next year that are with artists that I love, that I listen to, that I’m fan of. It’s always fun to be able to work with an artist whose music you are a fan of, and you then become part of that picture and help build that world. It’s a privilege for sure.
