Hip Hop
Hip Hop
Grey Organisation; Toby Mott; De La Soul
Album Cover Variation for De La Soul's 1988 debut "3 Feet High and Rising"
Lot Closed
July 25, 04:39 PM GMT
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Grey Organisation; Toby Mott
De La Soul 3 Feet High and Rising Album Cover Variation, 1988
12 x 12 in. black and white photographic print with yellow Posca paint pen applied over negative space, overlaid with acetate sheet—adhered to photo with small pieces of tape to each side—bearing band name, album title, and floral design motifs in black, purple, orange, pink, and blue Posca paint pen. Stamped “GREY ORGANISATION” along lower right margin (horizonal and vertical) and “1988 GREY ORGANISATION” on verso, plus printed ownership label reading “The Mott Collection TM” stamped “9188” in black ink. Adhesive discoloration to tape, small areas of pigment loss to letters, other design elements on acetate.
Courtesy Toby Mott
Chang, Jeff. “3 Feet High and Rising.” Review of 3 Feet High and Rising, by De La Soul. Released March 3, 1989. Pitchfork, September 23, 2018. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/de-la-soul-3-feet-high-and-rising/.
Mott, Toby. “NEW YORK CITY, HIP HOP IN THE DAISY AGE, SUMMER 1989.” Hypergallery. https://hypergallery.com/en-us/blogs/blog/new-york-city-hip-hop-in-the-daisy-age-summer-1989.
3 Feet High and Rising (1989) was the debut album of De La Soul—the trio comprised of Kevin "Posdnuos" Mercer, Dave "Trugoy the Dove" Jolicoeur, and Vincent "Pasemaster Mase" Mason, with vital contributions from producer DJ Paul "Prince Paul" Huston. This debut was an instant critical and commercial success, "an unprecedented assemblage of sound... offering a world as richly imagined as anything American pop has ever produced" (Chang).
With its splashy, cartoon-inspired graphics, 3 Feet also established a new look for Hip Hop. De La’s label Tommy Boy Records engaged British art collective Grey Organisation to develop the album's aesthetic—bringing together a bright, neon palette, and a playful, pop-art sensibility into something uniquely fitted to De La's "high-concept, hilariously genuine, generously human" ethos (Chang).
In his essay, "Hip Hop in The Daisy Age" Grey’s founder and art director Toby Mott stated that they set out to "move away from the prevailing macho hip-hop visual codes which dominate to this day," describing the album design process as follows:
"We have come up with the 'Daisy Age' visual concept. De La Soul visit our loft where we lay them down on the floor facing up, their heads making a triangle. We photograph them whilst hanging precariously off a step ladder, one idea being that the cover would not have a right way up. CDs have yet to be the dominant musical format so the vinyl album sleeve is our most effective way of making a statement. We layer the brightly-coloured hand drawn flower designs made with Posca paint pens on acetate over the black and white photographic portrait print, which is rostrum camera copied..."
The present study features all the major design elements of the final version, with variations in color and text placement. This study also features an additional central floral element that does not appear in the final version.