The Cipher

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Album covers designed or art directed by Cey Adams — **112: Cey Adams** Jun 22, 2015
Show notes

This week, we talk to Cey Adams – artist, graphic designer, “fourth Beastie,” and founding Creative Director at Def Jam.
Adams got his start as a graffiti writer in his native New York City, and moved from the vibrant graf world into the same East Village art scene as people like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. In 1982, he met Russell Simmons, and quickly started designing anything and everything visual for Simmons’ management company and, shortly afterwards, his new record label Def Jam. At around the same time, Adams met and befriended the Beastie Boys. He has designed countless tour t-shirts, logos, stage backdrops, and album covers for the group.
Adams designed and oversaw historic album covers and logos not only for Def Jam artists like Public Enemy and Slick Rick, but also Bad Boy, Universal, MCA, and others – including the album cover to Big’s *Ready to Die* and the now-iconic signature-style logo for Mary J. Blige. In addition, he has designed logos and products for The Chapelle Show, NYC’s Hot 97 radio station, Nike, Coca-Cola, and more.
As if that wasn’t enough, Adams co-authored the book *DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop* and designed the definitive book *Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label*.
A special note: to see a gallery of many of the images Cey is talking about during our interview, click here.
See http://theciphershow.com/episode/112/ for full show notes and comments.

111: Vinnie Paz Jun 15, 2015

Show notes

Vinnie Paz founded the group Jedi Mind Tricks when he was a teenager in mid-90s Philly. His raps about politics, mythology, war, religion, conspiracy theories, and the paranormal set him apart immediately from most of the underground rap of the era.

The group’s full-length debut was The Psycho-Social, Chemical, Biological & Electro-Magnetic Manipulation of Human Consciousness, a bizarre, fascinating, and uncompromising concept album. In 2000, they put out by Violent By Design, a more streamlined and aggressive record that got a lot of attention and remains a fan favorite to this day.

Vinnie and Jedi Mind Tricks would continue through ups and downs, with frequent collaborator Jus Allah and producer and co-founder Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind moving in and out of the group over the years. Vinnie has also released records under his own name, with the Army of the Pharaohs collective, and with Ill Bill as the duo “Heavy Metal Kings.” Through it all, his expansive vision, powerful style, and devotion to his fans has remained consistent. His latest release with a reunited Jedi Mind Tricks is The Thief and the Fallen.

See http://theciphershow.com/episode/111/ for full show notes and comments.

110: Blueprint Jun 08, 2015

Show notes

Al “Blueprint” Shepard is a Columbus, Ohio-based emcee and producer. He got his start in that city’s vital scene in the late 1990s, along with talents like RJD2, Copywrite, and Camu Tao. However, most rap fans first heard his unique voice, freestyle skills, and creative, melodic beats either via his work on the influential Rhymesayers label, or in his duo with RJ called Soul Position.

Blueprint has been all over the map musically – from straight ahead boom-bap to electronic experimentation to jazzy instrumentals to full-length tributes to his favorite bands. But he’s brought his unique musical sensibilities and inquisitive, ever-searching nature to all of it.

His latest album, released this past April, is King No Crown.

See http://theciphershow.com/episode/110/ for full show notes and comments.

109: Janette Beckman May 31, 2015

Show notes

Janette Beckman has taken some of the most iconic photos out there not only of hip-hop, but of music and youth culture as a whole. She got her start in Britain in the late 1970s, using her art-school education to take photos of the then-burgeoning punk movement. But in 1983, she saw the very first international hip-hop tour, and was so taken by the music and culture that she hopped on a plane to New York City and never left.

She has taken classic photos of LL Cool J, Salt N’ Pepa, NWA, Slick Rick, Big Daddy Kane, Afrika Bambaataa, and tons more. She’s also shot famous album covers for the likes of EPMD, Ultramagnetic MCs, Run-DMC, the Police, Gang Starr, and others. And if that wasn’t enough, she’s also done popular photo series on Mexican street gangs, Harlem bikers, and underground fight clubs.

We talked to Janette about the entirety of her life and career, and got the inside stories behind tons of her iconic photographs and album covers. You can see her hip-hop work for yourself through September 13th at the Museum of the City of New York in Manhattan, as part of the exhibition Hip-Hop Revolution: Photographs by Janette Beckman, Joe Conzo, and Martha Cooper. On June 3rd at 6:30 PM, Janette, past Cipher guest Bill Adler, and upcoming Cipher guest Cey Adams will be part of a panel called “Hip Hop’s Visual Style: A Look Behind the Scenes” at the Museum.

NOTE: To see Janette’s photos that we talk about on this episode, you can scroll through the pictures on Imgur or watch the episode on YouTube.

See http://theciphershow.com/episode/109/ for full show notes and comments.

108: J-Zone May 25, 2015

Show notes

J-Zone is a rapper, producer, musician, and author whose ability to find and chop the perfect sample is paired with a rap persona that combines raunchiness, self-depreciating humor, social commentary, and a deep love for all of rap history, including some of its more bizarre corners. And, naturally, an alter ego who just happens to be a four foot three, baseball bat wielding rodent named Chief Chinchilla.

His first album, 1999’s Music For Tu Madre, began life as a college senior project, but quickly caught on with the underground scene. He then released a ton of albums - with his Old Maid Billionaires crew, solo, with collaborators like Celph Titled, and even a record of malt liquor jingles.

But by 2009, he was noticing diminishing returns financially and creatively, and decided to get out of the rap game, a decision he explored in his 2011 memoir Root for the Villain: Rap, Bull$hit, and a Celebration of Failure. In a surprising turn of events, the book’s success inspired him to return to music to create his first new solo album in nine years, 2013’s Peter Pan Syndrome.

See http://theciphershow.com/episode/108/ for full show notes and comments.

107: Murs May 18, 2015

Show notes

Nicholas “Murs” Carter is a rapper who has seen and done it all. He began his career in the Los Angeles underground scene as a teenager in the early 1990s with his friends in the Living Legends collective. By the early years of the next decade, he had become a major player in the world of underground rap.

His subsequent solo albums on both indie and major labels, as well as his collaborations with artists like Slug and 9th Wonder, have cemented his status as one of the most notable rappers out there, underground or otherwise.

His brand-new album is Have A Nice Life.

See http://theciphershow.com/episode/107/ for full show notes and comments.

106: John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon May 11, 2015

Show notes

John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten, is a true punk legend. He was the singer of the Sex Pistols, the ground-breaking British punk band. The Pistols formed in 1975, and their raw sound combined with Lydon’s powerful, unfiltered lyrics taking shots at the Queen, the music industry, and the system as a whole created something entirely new – a sound, look, and attitude that would quickly be picked up and copied by legions of bands to follow, and would spark the punk rock revolution.

The Sex Pistols broke up in early 1978, and Lydon went on to form the influential group Public Image Limited, or PiL. The group went in an entirely different direction, making often-danceable, experimental music. Their second album, 1979’s Metal Box, is generally regarded as a landmark release, and was chosen as one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time by Rolling Stone.

Lydon’s new memoir, which covers the entirety of his life and career, is called Anger Is An Energy: My Life Uncensored (Dey Street).

We were joined by legendary photographer Janette Beckman (soon to be a Cipher guest herself), who took some pictures – the first time she had photographed Lydon since she took now-famous shots of him with the Sex Pistols and in the early days of PiL, like the image you see above.

See http://theciphershow.com/episode/106/ for full show notes and comments.

105: RJD2 May 04, 2015

Show notes

RJD2 began his career as a DJ in the mid-1990s, but it wasn’t until his 2002 solo album Deadringer that he really started making noise. That record got a ton of attention for its creative sample-based approach to instrumental hip-hop, and RJ became an important part of the El-P led Def Jux label, which was a huge force in the underground rap scene of the era.

Since then, he has released a ton of wildly varying, but always worthwhile and interesting, projects, from hip-hop records to synthesizer-based soundscapes to pop songs with his own vocals. One of RJ’s tracks, “A Beautiful Mine,” is best-known to most people as the theme for AMC’s hit show Mad Men. His brand-new album with rapper Sugar Tongue Slim is called STS X RJD2.

See http://theciphershow.com/episode/105/ for full show notes and comments.

104: Scarface Apr 27, 2015

Show notes

Brad “Scarface” Jordan first came to the public’s attention as a member of Houston’s controversial group The Geto Boys. The trio - Scarface, Willie D, and Bushwick Bill - made dark, edgy, and often disturbing music. Their songs like “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” and “Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta” gained them legions of both fans and critics.

Scarface released his first solo album in 1991, and has since put out classics like Mr Scarface Is Back, The Diary, and The Fix, that continue his career-long streak of well-crafted storytelling and unflinching honesty and self-examination. Now he has a new project - a memoir written with Benjamin Meadows-Ingram called Diary of a Madman: The Geto Boys, Life, Death, and the Roots of Southern Rap, published by Harper Collins. The book covers his life with the same directness and power we’ve seen in his raps.

Our talk with Face covers his musical influences in great detail, and also finds time to cover his own career, the book, how he felt trapped by his own name, and lots more.

See http://theciphershow.com/episode/104/ for full show notes and comments.

103: Oliver Wang Apr 18, 2015

Show notes

Oliver Wang is a writer, critic, audio blogger, and DJ. He is best-known among hip-hop fans for his features and reviews for LA Weekly, Urb, NPR, and basically everywhere else. We discuss his new book Legions of Boom: Filipino American Mobile DJ Crews in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The fascinating book looks at a previously unexplored and nearly forgotten scene from the late 1970s through the early 90s. Young people in the Bay Area, almost entirely Filipino, were inspired by the disco craze to form DJ crews and start throwing parties. At its height, there were scores of crews throughout the entire Bay. Some of the scene’s most prominent alumni were QBert, Mixmaster Mike, and Apollo. The three of them would form the Invisibl Skratch Piklz and go on to invent an entirely new kind of DJing, where virtuosic scratching took center stage.

See http://theciphershow.com/episode/103/ for full show notes and comments.

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