I originally wanted to shoot Kanye for the cover. It was the big splash/introduction I was trying to make with my first cover as the editorial creative director at Complex. I also thought a Kanye cover for Complex’s 20-year issue made complete sense. We hadn’t had a Kanye cover in a while and a new one showing the latest iteration of Ye was necessary. I worked hard to make it happen—it didn’t—but before I knew it wasn’t going to happen, I understood we would need a plan B. Reggieknow immediately came to mind.
If you don’t know who Reggieknow is, go read this thorough profile Lei Takanashi wrote on him a couple of years ago. But Reggieknow walked so a lot of Chicago creatives could run. He helped cultivate a hip-hop scene in Chicago during the ‘90s with Dem Dare parties and went on to work in advertising for Burrell, the Black-owned, Chicago-based ad agency. You’ve probably seen a few of his “Obey Your Thirst” Sprite commercials featuring people like Kobe Bryant, Pete Rock, Eve, and Mos Def.
I remember the first time I saw his Dem Dare flyers. I thought they were works of art. The flyers were black and white, but still very vibrant. The people he illustrated looked so cool, so Black, and they were so well dressed. He put them in the finest pieces from Polo—Reggieknow was an avid Polo collector who helped build that community in Chicago, which influenced Kanye’s early fascination with the brand—along with four finger rings, Columbia ski masks, Timberland boots, and North Face jackets. And the hair?!? He paid so much attention to showing how diverse Black hair is—whether it was locs, bowl cuts, or mini afros accessorized with a hair pick. This was someone who wanted to see himself in the art he created.
In many ways this connects to Kanye, who continues to reveal himself in his art, and remains committed to a look. Reggieknow and Kanye are friendly—Kanye once described seeing him in Chicago and being amazed by his outfit. They also both went to the Art Academy of Chicago (at different times). They have very different career paths, but they are both artists from Chicago who had to defy the boundaries created for them in order to succeed—and build their own worlds.
“What I’ve come to realize as I get older is that Chicago is a working town. It’s in the middle. And so the influences were coming from the East and West Coast as far as hip-hop culture goes. I learned later that the goal was to keep the city as consumers,” says Reggieknow. “You can’t create. We just need you guys to consume. And so I think that the box they tried to keep us in created a type of push. The city is also so segregated. It’s so much working against you there.”
I could say a lot about the cover, but I’ll let Reggieknow explain what went into his thoughtful illustration of Kanye for Complex’s 20-year issue. It was an honor to work with him and hear firsthand how he thinks and creates. Enjoy. Dig into the references. And go build the world you want to be a part of, even if that’s as simple as wearing a fly outfit that makes you feel wholly you.
ROLL OVER IMAGE TO ZOOM IN ON DETAILS
I originally wanted to shoot Kanye for the cover. It was the big splash/introduction I was trying to make with my first cover as the editorial creative director at Complex. I also thought a Kanye cover for Complex’s 20-year issue made complete sense. We hadn’t had a Kanye cover in a while and a new one showing the latest iteration of Ye was necessary. I worked hard to make it happen—it didn’t—but before I knew it wasn’t going to happen, I understood we would need a plan B. Reggieknow immediately came to mind.
If you don’t know who Reggieknow is, go read this thorough profile Lei Takanashi wrote on him a couple of years ago. But Reggieknow walked so a lot of Chicago creatives could run. He helped cultivate a hip-hop scene in Chicago during the ‘90s with Dem Dare parties and went on to work in advertising for Burrell, the Black-owned, Chicago-based ad agency. You’ve probably seen a few of his “Obey Your Thirst” Sprite commercials featuring people like Kobe Bryant, Pete Rock, Eve, and Mos Def.
I remember the first time I saw his Dem Dare flyers. I thought they were works of art. The flyers were black and white, but still very vibrant. The people he illustrated looked so cool, so Black, and they were so well dressed. He put them in the finest pieces from Polo—Reggieknow was an avid Polo collector who helped build that community in Chicago, which influenced Kanye’s early fascination with the brand—along with four finger rings, Columbia ski masks, Timberland boots, and North Face jackets. And the hair?!? He paid so much attention to showing how diverse Black hair is—whether it was locs, bowl cuts, or mini afros accessorized with a hair pick. This was someone who wanted to see himself in the art he created.
In many ways this connects to Kanye, who continues to reveal himself in his art, and remains committed to a look. Reggieknow and Kanye are friendly—Kanye once described seeing him in Chicago and being amazed by his outfit. They also both went to the Art Academy of Chicago (at different times). They have very different career paths, but they are both artists from Chicago who had to defy the boundaries created for them in order to succeed—and build their own worlds.
“What I’ve come to realize as I get older is that Chicago is a working town. It’s in the middle. And so the influences were coming from the East and West Coast as far as hip-hop culture goes. I learned later that the goal was to keep the city as consumers,” says Reggieknow. “You can’t create. We just need you guys to consume. And so I think that the box they tried to keep us in created a type of push. The city is also so segregated. It’s so much working against you there.”
I could say a lot about the cover, but I’ll let Reggieknow explain what went into his thoughtful illustration of Kanye for Complex’s 20-year issue. It was an honor to work with him and hear firsthand how he thinks and creates. Enjoy. Dig into the references. And go build the world you want to be a part of, even if that’s as simple as wearing a fly outfit that makes you feel wholly you.
ROLL OVER IMAGE TO ZOOM IN ON DETAILS
What was your process with this illustration?
The seed was planted once I knew the cover was celebrating Complex’s 20th anniversary along with Kanye, which is so perfect because Complex has done many stories on Kanye through the years, especially when he first started out. From there, it was figuring out how to say it all. So in my thinking about all the elements and not being too caught up in the past, I thought about the house and his fashion right now. We can put his past looks and merch on the bears and they’ll represent him now. I think the house was the first element and then my thinking about him sitting on the porch and then that made me think about it as if it was his throne. That opened the Akira idea and then everything just snowballed.
You had a Where’s Waldo? image as a reference. Talk about that.
So the Where’s Waldo? image is because of the complexity of the cover. There’s so much going on and then he’s in the middle of it, you know? So it’s kinda like Where’s Waldo? meets Akira. So he’s sitting on his throne like Tetsuo [Shima], in Akira, but then also the Where’s Waldo? element because it’s just all his creations. They’re all around him and he’s just engulfed in it. Where the cover idea started for me was Where’s Waldo? But even before that it was E.T. hiding in the closet with all the stuffed animals. There’s so many layers.
You also sent over a picture of Walt Disney.
So the Disney reference first is Kanye mentioning wanting to walk in Disney’s shoes. Kanye and his dropout bears mimic the many classic moments of Disney with all of the characters he created. So our cover is Kanye also holding his creations. The bears are also his Minions but they’re dressed in the different album and fashion eras of Kanye. One easter egg is the graffiti on the house (“How Ye Changed Everything”) favors the Minions logo with the yellow. As a nod to Chicago South Side culture, one of the bears has a bag of Harold’s Chicken. Did you see that one? Ha, there’s so many layers.
That’s crazy.
Even the house itself, illustrated like the house he grew up in and modeled to the one he set on fire in his last shows. An even-deeper easter egg is the house drawn is from A Tribe Called Quest’s “People’s Instinctive Travels…” All those houses on the blocks. Kanye’s house is like a pastel moss green, but the blend of the blue references the Tribe cover.
Oh my gosh. Was there a particular reason why you chose that Tribe cover?
I think that with hip-hop, it’s our responsibility and our duty to honor what was before us. That’s how you pass the torch. When I was doing work with Sprite on the “Five Deadly Venoms” with Eve, Angie Martinez, Amil, Roxanne Shante, and Mia X, they’re fighting Kool Keith to get these tapes. They think it’s Kool Keith, but it winds up being Millie Jackson, who is the first female to rap on record. And then they bow to her at the end. So it’s just about the knowledge of the culture and passing it on so it can keep going. So it’s our duty. You gotta know who Crazy Legs is. You gotta know who [DJ] Kool Herc is. You gotta know the Zulu Nation. If you express yourself through any of the four elements, you kinda gotta know these things. If you love the culture like I did when I was a teen. And it’s not to say you can’t express yourself through the culture if you don’t know, but it’s wise to know your past to know your future.
Yes. You included that reference image of the Akira character on his throne. Can we break that down a little?
That’s Tetsuo, one of the main characters. It was kind of an end-of-the-world anime story being told through sci-fi. But it was just so impactful from an anime standpoint. So that’s why, you know, myself, Kanye, Virgil, and so many artists reference it. Let me tell you… When Akira came out when I was in college, I was just speechless. The animation was so insane at that time. And so knowing Kanye is an artist too, the dots connect. And you know with hip-hop, we sample things and change them around and make them our own. And so this Akira reference represents that.
I want to talk about the Akira jars and what you decided to put in them.
In Akira, there were Akira’s body parts but more like codes to Akira in the jars. Something high-level in those specimen jars the government didn’t want getting out. So with Kanye, the jars contain highlights of his career that are pretty much etched and preserved in history. The jar content could’ve kept going. I’m sure there are many more Kanye-isms.
Let’s break down what’s in the jars. You have his Grammys in one. The video tape with the pink bow represents the sex tapes or hard drive he delivered to Kim Kardashian. What’s in the others? Is that the Good Music angel?
Yea. That’s the Good Music angel on top of the Mercedes-Benz he crashed. And the jar by his boot is the Watch the Throne cover art. Some are broken, which speaks to his off-on relationship with Jay-Z.
What about the jars on the upper level of the porch?
The one on the left is McDonald’s packaging. It speaks to his different brand partnerships and the idea of him redesigning/rebranding things. And in the other jar, there are Roc-A-Fella medallions.
What about this Steve Jobs image?
You’ll notice how with the Apple computer references and the picture of Steve Jobs with the second-model Macintosh. But here you have Kanye’s Stem Player. And in the original picture with Steve Jobs, the screen read “hello,” but our Kanye computer screen reads “yellow,” playing off of “Ye.”
Why did you decide to include the Denim Tears jeans?
I just wanted to make it as current and up-to-date with where he is creatively and fashion-wise.
I did want to talk about why you decided to include his mother Donda as an angel.
Definitely the power of mother. We’re really witnessing the real power of Donda. Coodie and Chike then showed it to us in their documentary. She’s still the backbone; in the drawing, she’s his Tinker Bell. The Donda angel is always over his shoulder. She’s always there.
Can we talk a little bit about Chicago? Because I think one of the reasons why I really wanted to work with you on this cover is because there’s this inherent knowing and connection that you have with Kanye coming from Chicago and wanting to be creative and having your particular interests. And obviously, that inspired Kanye in some way. What is it about Chicago that breeds so much creativity?
What I’ve come to realize as I get older is that Chicago is a working town. It’s in the middle. And so the influences were coming from the East and West Coast as far as hip-hop culture goes. I learned later that the goal was to keep the city as consumers. You can’t create. We just need you guys to consume. And so I think that the box they tried to keep us in created a type of push. The city is also so segregated. It’s so much working against you there. Virgil and I would have conversations about trying to do something with the youth in Chicago and letting them know that you don’t have to subscribe to that.
And Chicago has such a love for hip-hop culture because hip-hop is not originally from there. I just remember having friends of friends in New York and being in awe of the idea of rap music being on the radio. New York is just so hip-hop, especially in the ’90s. It’s like air in New York. But in Chicago, it’s gang culture. I was there when gangbangers didn’t even listen to rap music. So my friends and I starved for it more being from Chicago.
Why did you have that particular bear with the rugby polo sitting on his lap?
It represents his first kinda big moments. The start of being recognized for having fashion design interests. His first of designing sneakers, etc. So that bear should be on his lap. Then surrounded by all the other dropout bears that represent the steps he’s made from the shoes that they’re wearing to their fashion.
And that life-size Jesus piece?
Yeah, that’s the custom medallion Takashi Murakami designed for him. Then I added the garb of Sunday service. The Lego heart is from the 808s & Heartbreak era.
Can you talk about the red hat on the bear wearing the Pastelle jacket?
Right now, we are experiencing the ripple effect of Trump. But the hat is a page from the Kanye story. So…how do we speak to it without waving the Trump flag? Fashion instead of politics is a way to give a subtle nod to it, then adding the snakeskin brim speaks to the fashion moments he and Don C shared. They were calling them 150s, but the snakeskin hat is not a 150. 150s don’t stop at snakeskin; they have marble eggs, trophy statues, dice, and even plastic trolls on the brim. It’s a story in itself. The cap is a small part but still a layer of the Kanye story we’re presenting. Due to the ripple effect, the hat is facing the other way and not forward because it’s not forward-thinking for humans right now.
Can you talk about the flyers you were drawing when you were hosting the Dem Dare parties? What inspired you? What was the goal?
Well, my being a graffiti artist, my argument with most of the Chicago hip-hop community was very much like, “This hip-hop thing is cool, I guess. Tagging things is cool, but this can’t be it?” My dream of wanting my art to be my career started very early. How do you get paid for this is the question. That was answered right in front of me in the movie Wild Style(I), with artists debating graffiti on subway cars vs. canvas. This was right before my time in the ’80s. Calling this vandalism to the world of art was so inspirational for me. That downtown New York scene with Lee, [Jean-Michel] Basquiat, Fab 5 Freddy, Pink, and DONDI to name a few, those are our forefathers in this art thing. Sidenote: That time period is one of the influences of the art Virgil and I created for Louis Vuitton’s “Amen Break.”
So with the Dem Dare flyers, I said this would be my version of what we called “getting up” in the city. My career started right after that. Like my art today, you can see the heavy anime influence. Many cartoons i grew up watching were things I didn’t know but learned later they were anime like Speed Racer, Gatchaman, and Voltron. So the flyers promoted the events we were doing and also made my art go “all city” as NYC graf artists used to say.
You were also, it seems like, integrating Black characters into a space that didn’t typically have Black characters, right?
Indeed. If you think about graffiti artists like Gnome, Mode 2, Doze, and Kase2. These guys were illustrating that too. Black characters and/or people of color with these urban styles. All humans are inspired by seeing themselves represented in art. Even more so when the artists look like them, too.
Sometimes, we have to take things, sample them, and make them our own. It’s why I started Fashion Figure Inc. I was collecting toys since the ’90s and again the 12” action figure space wasn’t giving me enough. I wanted to see figures that really reflect the culture and the fashion of what I love and they weren’t around. My FFINC 12” action figures totally changed that.
And can you talk about the Sunday Service Bearbricks with the cornrows.
It’s where another Kanye element meets toy culture. This one being when an early Kanye wore cornrows. Complex being first to introduce toys to urban culture and Bearbricks are also of that time. The different Complex covers are homage to that era too. I was thinking how can I communicate with choir members? A Bearbrick choir collection. Perfect. Collector culture being a wave in sneakers, comics, toys, and vintage, we embodied them all.
What have you learned from Kanye?
The importance of staying focused. Full attention to the power of manifesting what you want. Of course I share in people thinking I’m crazy. I honestly think he may have figured out how to silence out what doesn’t work for where he’s going. I think people may lazily call many of his actions arrogance, but it’s possible it’s just a deep focus.
You said there were more things you wanted to put on the cover. What else would you have added?
The things that branched out from him. Because when we think about the title, “How Ye Changed Everything,” in my opinion it doesn’t just mean everything around us but rather how brands deal with artists. He changed the lives of people close to him. So maybe like a tree that bears the fruit with the friends who started with him. Their logos on the fruit because they put in the work too but they all share Kanye seeds.
