For the first and maybe the last time ever, you can own the photo of Kanye West sitting on the bleachers in The College Dropout bear costume. Photographer Danny Clinch announced on Instagram recently that he is "digging through old hip hop contact sheets" and will be dropping gems on his webstore for a special sale next week. For decades, Clinch has shot the greats of the music world across all genres, but his career started with hip-hop. The cover he shot with Kanye has become one of the rapper's most iconic.
In our interview with Clinch and art director Eric Duvauchelle, Clinch said that Kanye was very involved with the process and that he had "plenty of ideas and a vision for the packaging." He added that he was "surprised as anyone that [Kanye] covered his face for the album cover, but at this point, knowing his history of breaking the rules, it doesn’t surprise me at all."
Duvauchelle said that he met Kanye at Damon Dash's office after the photoshoot had already happened. "I was handed a binder full of images to pick from. I quickly gravitated towards him sitting alone on the bleachers in the mascot suit. It was interesting to me as the Dropout Bear is meant to be the most popular representation of a school, yet in the cover, it shows Kanye in the mascot suit/head, all alone sitting on bleachers."
Clinch has also created tons of iconic shots of rap gods, such as Tupac, Outkast, Slick Rick, Run DMC, Redman, The Fugees, and many others. He hasn't specified which ones will be available in the sale, but you can bet that they will be amazing.
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