When Das Racist came to Fitzgerald's this past October, we got to chat with the subject of this Frida Kahlo knockoff painting: Lakutis. While standing on the upstairs balcony before they went on stage, the group's hypeman's hypeman told us that MishkaNYC was putting out his very first mixtape. (Peep the download link.)
Kutis had his mixtape cover art saved in his phone, and he showed it to us very discreetly. Apparently a friend painted a portrait of him, modeled after Frida Kahlo's famous self portrait, Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird. Initially we laughed, but the harder we looked at it the more sense it made.
The tape was released last Thursday and is free through Lakutis' Bandcamp. The 7-track mixtape is as artsy as the cover is, complete with a sensual cover of Ja Rule "Put It On Me" and some very Dada introductions and adlibs.
There's a mass of similarly undiscovered artistic treasure buried in the depths of DatPiff.com. It's here that people can promote their music by creating artwork-often times using Paint or Photoshop -- in hopes of getting a few thousand downloads and maybe becoming a Twitter trending topic.
Since we usually skim through the pages of DatPiff for mixtapes we may be missing out on, we cherrypicked some of the best DIY mixtape covers we could find.
V-Nasty Don't Bite Just Taste
This rapper's name sounds like a new classification of a venereal disease. Her little sister Kreayshawn is kind of cute, but after seeing this video we can't get on board with the White Girl Mob. And as for the name of the mixtape, who would want a taste of something called V-Nasty? It probably tastes like a 3-day old Sourdough Jack.
B.I.M Boyz From The Swamp 2 Mars
The artwork here is a little confusing, but we really like the visual elements. You got your alligators and swamp art on the bottom, an iced out slab in the middle, and outer space --which looks alot like a metropolitan city -- at the top. There's still complexity and depth in Word block fonts.
Lil B Illusions of Grandeur
Out of every one of B's mixtape covers, this one is our favorite. We've included it on a few lists in the past, but it never gets old. "England, England, bitch I'm Queen of England."
2Pac I'll Be Back
Can this be funny yet? 2Pac superimposed on The Terminator is one of the best uses of Photoshop we've ever seen. The mixtape is just a compilation of some of Pac's hits, but it still deserves its credit. We all know that Pac is coming back, and when he does he'll most likely be a cyborg and finally we'll know what the Illuminati really is.
Rick Ross, Drake, Big Sean, Various Artists Quench Your Thirst
If you're still downloading mixtapes like this, STOP. We thought this trend ended when people realized that none of the 200 Lil Wayne mixtape releases were official. Anyway, we thought this was a pretty creative way to get people to download the tape: Drake giving the thumbs up while he skis on Rick Ross' saliva.
Koncept Talking In My Sleep
This mixtape only has 50 downloads since its release in June 2010. This goes to show you that the more effort you put into your mixtape artwork, the more downloads you'll get! Don't do what Koncept did and use MS Paint...although the lava lamp and the Nas poster are good touches.