The 50 Best Rap Album Covers of the Past Five Years

Image via Complex Original

Release date: Sep. 8, 2009
Photography: Dan Tobin Smith
Art direction: Greg Burke, Nicola Yeoman
Labels: Roc Nation, Atlantic

It's easy to think that this everything-but-the-kitchen sink stack of instruments and recording equipment was created using Photoshop, even the red lines across the top look unreal. The amazing thing about this cover, though, is that it was created using photography and a projector.

The design team carefully stacked all the equipment in a corner then used the projector to create those red bars. They then painted red onto the equipment where the projection of the bars was, and replaced the projector with a camera to achieve the correct perspective for this incredibly rich image, making it an amazing technical achievement.

Blueprint 3 was the first album cover that didn't feature Jay Z's face on it, marking a change in approach to his music and visuals. Judging by the way his Magna Carta album cover and rollout have been so far (via the "Picasso Baby" and "Holy Grail" videos), the #newrules method is here to stay. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Dec. 11, 2012
Photography: Jonathan Mannion
Art direction: Mike Saputo, Vlad Sepetov
Labels: DGC Records, Interscope

Los Angeles-based rapper Game pissed off many Catholics when he released the art for his fifth studio album Jesus Piece via Instagram. Said to be blasphemous, it features a dark-skinned Jesus clad in a bandana and his own Jesus piece.

The red bandana is said to represent the Cedar Block Piru Bloods, a gang to which Game allegedly belongs. Designed by Vlad Sepetov, the cover art was so controversial in religious circles that the Roman Catholic Church actually called Interscope Records to complain about it. "Interscope is mostly Jewish, you know," Game said. "They called the wrong building." Controversy aside, the cover is a cool composition updating the look of stained glass to fit the edginess of Game and the album Jesus Piece. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: May 3, 2010
Labels: Cinematic Music Group, Nature Sounds

On Big K.R.I.T's sixth mixtape titled K.R.I.T Wuz Here, the rapper makes it clear: He's not just going to take ownership of the crown, he's going to carve his name in it and leave it as a relic for his followers to find later. As a classic graffiti sentiment, it's fairly recognizable, but as a statement of purpose, it's much simpler—he's always on the move.

K.R.I.T. isn't going to stick around to see who's coming at him next, even if the "Hometown Hero" knows that Mississippi is the center of his fortress. "K.R.I.T. was here" is a statement of ambition, of relentless process, and the sharks-keep-moving mentality that rocketed him into the spotlight to begin with. The album cover simply hints, with a grimy, refined subtlety, at K.R.I.T's boundless potential. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Oct. 31, 2010
Photography: Toussaint Maupin, Brick Stowell
Label: Fat Possum

Originally released as a free download with a much different, if not equally sinister cover, the Mellowhype record BlackenedWhite got a reissue by Fat Possum Records in 2011. This included an updated album cover and liner notes, with dark and compelling photographs by Toussaint Maupin and Brick Stowell.

Considering Odd Future's rise to the fore through the Internet and their fascination with occult imagery, the retooling made a lot sense. The pixelated, upside-down cross was a perfect compliment to the gritty synths, distorted drums, and mean lyrics of the album. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Sept. 15, 2009
Art direction: Mark "Darkie" Mayers
Label: OVO Sound

So Far Gone, the mixtape that broke the Canadian MC, is introspective and somber, nighttime alone-time music. Drake wonders aloud about his love life, his career. You can hear his uncertainty—that's the little boy on the cover—on songs like "Say What's Real" and "Lust for Life."

What's not immediately explicit about this cover is that it bites a piece of art that the UK ad agency AMV BBDO designed for The Economist in 2007. The figure comes directly from the ad, as does the big block-letter jumble of words. The headline for the piece asks, "What's the worst thing to lose as we get older? Our hair? Our teeth? Our curiosity?" The answer is ominous. Above the figure hangs a spider. Fitting, though, that a concern about the future was the inspiration for Drake, who has never felt comfortable with his station in, seemingly, rap or life. —Ross Scarano

Release date: March 9, 2010
Photography: Virgil Solis, Kidz in the Hall
Art direction: Kidz in the Hall
Label: Duck Down Records

The cover for Kidz in the Hall's Land of Make Believe couldn't be more emblematic of the rap duo's message—this world is exactly what we make of it. By piecing together different parts of how we see ourselves, we become who we "make believe" we are. Designer Virgil Solis, along with the group, took that idea and ran with it, sculpting the New York duo of Naledge and Double-O in piecemeal fashion.

As they told DJ Booth around the time of the release, this was an album about "reaching for greatness while dodging bill collectors." Sure, they're reaching for the big time, and with little humility—the action here is a series of skins, where negotiating the real world is really just a matter of what one embodies. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: March 28, 2011
Photography: Darren Ankenman
Art direction: Greg Gigendad Burke, Christopher Bodie (illustrator)
Graphic design: Greg Gigendad Burke
Labels: Rostrum, Atlantic

Wiz Khalifa is known for a chill approach to rap, one that was proudly on display for his 2011 album, Rolling Papers. The album promotes being carefree and having a good time by rolling your problems up and blazing them down. Wiz views rolling paper as a sort of a good luck charm, telling Rap-Up, "My career really took off when I started smoking papers."

The cover represents problems dissolving—as the smoke disappears, so do the issues. In the lingering cloud, one faintly sees Wiz's face in all his glory. On "Roll Up," Khalifa claims, "Whenever you need me, whenever you want me...I'll roll up," supporting Wiz's smoke-filled lifestyle and the way he remains loyal to his fans. —Austin Weatherly

Release date: July 2, 2011
Photography: BRASS
Art direction: Kendrick Lamar, Dave Free
Label: Top Dawg Entertainment

Through Kendrick's rhymes on Section.80, listeners get a vivid depiction of the rapper's home and upbringing, a series of stories he expands on for 2012's good kid, m.A.A.d city in ways that no one was prepared for. 

The album art for Section.80 specifically gives listeners a relatable glimpse into Kendrick's previous lifestyle, featuring a desk buried beneath cash, a pack of condoms, a gun clip, and a whole lot of weed—all of which appears next to the Holy Bible. "It's the taboos of the world," Kendrick explained in 2011. "...People think if you have a Bible, there's supposed to be some Holy Water next to it. That's a person that's already saved." But Kendrick's not talking about those who have already been saved. He's talking about the ones who need saving.

He adds, "I'm speaking on a person who's looking at this clip he just put on the drawer, these condoms, a woman's lipstick, and this Bible. It's showing that he's a human being, but he's trying to find himself at the same time." While many of Kendrick's listeners will never fully empathize with the rapper's tales of growing up in Compton, Section.80 and its album art offer listeners a taste of that life. —Susan Cheng

Release date: Jan. 29, 2012
Photography: Ross Garrett
Art direction: Poespeak
Label: Zef Recordz

Remember when the Internet exploded with the sheer oddity that is the Zef-rap/rave crew known as Die Antwoord? We couldn't tell if these uniquely styled and over-the-top South Africans were fucking with us, or if their shtick was legit. It was a case of the Riff-Raffs before Riff-Raff really hit the scene.

The small crew of Ninja, Yo-Landi Vi$$er, and DJ Hi-Tek were not going to compromise their aesthetic for anyone, including the bigwigs of Interscope records. By the time they were ready to release Ten$ion, things had come to a head at the label, and the artists parted ways with the company. When they released this album on their newly-minted own Zef Recordz label, it was clear they were playing for keeps—featuring the haunting, blacked-out eyes of Yo-Landi with a clawed out heart from an unseen person's chest. With the album and the art, Die Antwoord addressed questions as to whether or not we should take them seriously head-on. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: July 4, 2013
Photography: Ari Marcopoulos
Art direction: Brian Roettinger
Labels: Roc-A-Fella, Roc Nation, Universal

While the reviews were mixed after the release of Jay Z's much-anticipatedMagna Carta Holy Grail, the album did present a significant moment in bridging the art world and the music (more specifically, hip-hop) world. From Jay Z's viral performance at Pace Gallery where he rapped in the face of a dancing Marina Abramovic, to the actual lyrics of "Picasso Baby," which are peppered with art world shout-outs, Jay Z asserted that a rapper has just as much of a right to perform in a New York gallery as anyone. Even his music video was a visual feast of art history with subtle references to paintings of the past.

It is fitting, then, that the album cover for Magna Carta Holy Grail was a blend of the high art that sits in museums and the rap music that comes from the streets. For his album cover, Jay Z censored his name in front of two Renaissance sculptures. Days after the big release, with the Metropolitan Museum identified the works as items in their collection, two sculptures called Alpheus and Arethusa by the 16th century Italian sculptor Battista di Domenico Lorenzi. The album art perfectly captured Jay's growth as a musician and transition from a hustler to a rapper to a performance artist. —Leigh Silver

Release date: Sep. 14, 2012
Photography: Fabien Montique
Art direction: Guido Callarelli
Art producer: Scott Townsend, Todd Russell
Graphic design: Joe Perez
Labels: GOOD, Def Jam

Before Kanye was actually coming out and saying, "I am a god," he and his DONDA creative agency were alluding to the deification of his clique all over the 2012 crew album for GOOD Music, Cruel Summer. "In Good We Trust," reads the embossed-stone inscription in the liner notes of this incredibly stark design by Joe Perez.

And yet, as unadorned as the artwork here is, there is something so opulent about how the stone bust of this woman—who resembles Maurizio Catalan's rendition of model Stephanie Seymour—jumps off the page. The first real album cover to claim DONDA outright as its visual team, Cruel Summer took 400 hours to render, according to Perez. In many ways, this album was DONDA's loud entrance into the outright realm of design, and by the looks of the album covers on the rest of this list, Kanye's creative domination isn't letting up. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Jan. 15, 2013
Photography: Phil Knott
Art direction: Joe Perez
Graphic design: Joe Perez
Labels: A$AP Worldwide, Polo Grounds, RCA

Before the release of his debut album Long.Live.A$AP, Rocky had established himself as an icon in the fashion world, uniting with Jeremy Scott for our February/March 2012 cover and getting early recognition as a charismatic figure poised for success.

Unlike the cover of his mixtape Long.Live.A$AP, where A$AP Rocky poses in front of the American flag, Long.Live.A$AP depicts the young rapper draped in the stars and stripes, as if to keep where he's from close to him—as a way of being grounded and loyal.

For someone who assures his listeners that he'll live forever, at least in the sense of being iconic, the album actually portrays Rocky with a lowered, contemplative gaze. While his album art boldly proclaims "Long.Live.A$AP," the title track's lyrics come to mind—"Toking on that biscuit till I'm no longer existing / I wonder if they miss me, as long as I make history / Now my soul is feeling empty, tell the reaper come and get me."

The cover embodies a reminder that everything is fleeting, but for the time being, Rocky's doing his thing to live long, strive, and prosper. —Susan Cheng

Release date: March 22, 2013
Art direction: Kanye West, DONDA, Joe Perez
Graphic design: Joe Perez
Labels: Cash Money Records, Republic, Young Money Entertainment

Lil Wayne got Kanye West and DONDA to design the cover of his latest record, I Am Not A Human Being II. Wayne told a New Orleans newspaper around the time of the artwork's release why he allowed designer Joe Perez to go with the moth: "[Kanye] said, you know, man, let me do your cover. I saw the cover, and I approved it. He chose the moth butterfly thing, because it has so many different stages of life, and it goes through so many forms and changes, and no one can figure it out, and it's always beautiful."

A few people also pointed out that it appears to reference the film poster for Silence of the Lambs. Whether or not this was intentional, the minimal cover showed Wayne taking a new direction visually, and we're not mad at it. Wayne's trajectory resembles a moth, and it seems like we're always anticipating his next stage. —Dale Eisenger

Release date: July 13, 2010
Art direction: David Barnett
Graphic design: David Barnett
Labels: Roc-A-Fella, DD172, Def Jam

Pilot Talk is a destination album. There's no doubt that if you're listening to it right, it takes you somewhere else, and unsurprisingly, so does its cover. Designed by David Barnett, the visual depicts Curren$y's symbolic jets cruising over an idealized version of Spitta's hometown of New Orleans, where marijuana leaves cover the ground below. The album title is a metaphor that gets better defined by the cover art. Spitta uses Pilot Talk as a euphemism for what happens when you smoke a lot of weed and make a rap album, something Curren$y is good at.

The beauty of the cover comes from the amount that it leaves to the imagination. In a way, the destination is different for each listener. The tracks are escapist and depict a location that is more cloudy and hazy than vivid, but it starts to feel like home. The cover gives you an outline of the destination but leaves the details up to you. —Austin Weatherly

Release date: Feb. 11, 2012
Art direction: Mark Shaw
Label: Iron Works

Ka, on what's essentially considered the underdog's comeback album from 2008's Iron Works, wants us to know that he has the right to feel the weight of the world. It was an allusion hinted at on the album's eponymous single release artwork—the name of the track was embossed onto a bullet.

Designer Mark Shaw took things to a broader level with the album cover. It became no longer just about a singular experience or the irrevocability of a single moment. Bombs, canons, hammers, lightning, and the Son of Sam all come together in an incredibly sinister way. The images are juxtaposed to make even a browning apple core look terrifying. Each piece of the puzzle gives new weight to its surroundings, and there's actually a palpable sense of grief. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: July 7, 2010
Photography: Maya Arulpragasam
Art direction: Maya Arulpragasam, Aaron Parsons
Labels: N.E.E.T., XL, Interscope

Something happened between Maya's second album and her third, /\/\ /\ Y /\. We wouldn't even say that it was something that happened to M.I.A. herself—it was a shift in the way art and music were being distributed and heard, through wires, shitty laptop speakers, and "Google connected to the government." In many ways, Maya was one of the first to combine that realization into a sonic and visual project that was bound to get an important conversation started.

Sure, the album wasn't everyone's cup of tea musically, but the way Maya and her team promoted and premiered it was historic, if only for spreading the artistic potential of the GIF and releasing an interactive website where fans could be a part of the cover's "digital ruckus" on the site (created by Ryder Ripps of OKFOCUS) facefacefacebook.com. Static video sliders, the eyes of a thousand Tumblrs, the way it piles on top of itself, and the ingrained YouTube image prove how this album cover has become even more meaningful since its initial release. Provocative and ahead of its time, /\/\ /\ Y /\ was beautiful because it knew the Internet before the Internet knew itself. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Dec. 8, 2009
Art direction: Anita Marisa Boriboon, Brian "KAWS" Donnelly (artist)
Graphic design: Anita Marisa Boriboon
Labels: Re-Up, Star Trak, Columbia

For Clipse, one way to get your underdog stance across is to hire one of the most revered street art icons out there to work on your visual packaging. That's just what Pusha T and Malice did for their third studio album, Til The Casket Drops. The pair tapped Brian "KAWS" Donnelly, the now very famous artist and designer who got his start in graffiti.

KAWS had already created a series of singles for the rap duo, and yet, this full-length cover is one of his more understated designs for the crew. Featuring his signature Xs on the Clipse logo, it's a clean, concise, and literal interpretation of the album's title, in vibrant pink. "KAWS is a fan of Clipse," Pusha T tells Hypebeast. "I found out that KAWS has an iPod full of Clipse music. From there we just reached out to him and wanted him to do the artwork for the new Clipse album. We just started this relationship. From there, he designed the Complex cover for us and he comes out to our events and shows his support."

Like Pharrell and Clipse, the KAWS and Clipse duo is a visual force to be reckoned with. No one can deny that KAWS' commercial works for artists like Clipse catapulted his work into a new level of commercial appreciation (read: Companion as a float at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and as the new MTV VMA Moonman). —Dale Eisinger

Release date: May 10, 2011
Photography: Golf Wang, Julian Berman, Thebe, Kelly Clancy, Brick Stowell
Art direction: Tyler, the Creator
Label: XL

As Tyler, the Creator—the young leader of hip-hop collective Odd Future—was coming up, there was a palpable aesthetic happening in digital music that some were calling witch house. Using dark, gothic themes with a dark bent towards pagan symbols, some of the production value was borrowed from bands like Salem that could be heard in the darkness of Tyler's music.

That went as far as the cover art for his album Goblin, where he blacked out his eyes and put an upside-down cross over this portrait shot by Julian Berman. Using the Cooper Black font—a classic in hip-hop graphic design and the hallmark of Odd Future—Goblin was emblematic of its time without being overbearingly trendy. It also made for a hell of a billboard. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: April 16, 2013
Photography: Nabil Elderkin
Art direction: Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi
Graphic design: Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi
Labels: Wicked Awesome, GOOD, Republic

Kid Cudi's journey has been a long one, filled with both struggle and success. His first two album covers offer more direct representations of their respective bodies of work and those periods in his life. On Man on the Moon: The End of the Day, the cover features Cudi's face superimposed onto the side of the moon, representing the dreamlike, outsidery feel of the album. On Man on the Moon: The Legend of Mr. Rager, Cudi looks dejected, head down and whiskey glass in hand, representing the darker reality he was going through. On Indicud, the cover is more abstract and representative of things that cannot be translated as easily, and that's the point.

The Indicud cover, which exists in a baroque frame, was designed by Kid Cudi himself. Cudi says, "I create art, so it will be presented as such." The specific use of baroque style frames was no stretch—the baroque period was categorized by the use of detail to tell dramatic and emotional stories. 

The inside of the frame represents the movement and cinematic quality of not only Cudi's work but also Cudi himself. The more abstract nature of this cover resembles the album, a piece of work that is more chaotic yet focused than some of Cudi's previous releases. The same way a fire is powerful and unpredictable, so is Indicud, but at the same time, the entire work exists within a certain, bright world enclosed by the frame. —Austin Weatherly

Release date: June 9, 2009
Photography: Charles Burnett
Label: Downtown

Mos Def has been fighting for cultural justice and equality in his work for many years, which has lead to little separation between his work as an MC and as an activist. Whether that's by reworking Jay Z and Kanye West's "Niggas in Paris" into an anthem about inequity, or by undertaking the force-feeding methods of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Yasiin Bey (as he now goes by) has kept us brutally aware of the disproportions still present in the world.

These ideas are felt in the subtle and still-moving album cover of The Ecstatic. The shot is a still from the 1979 film Killer of Sheep, directed by Charles Burnett—a richly detailed American film made on a budget of less than $10,000 about being African-American and living in Watts during the 1970s. The cover has hazy, dream-like movement, appearing as a non-narrative, loose collection of vignettes that are tangentially fascinating and incredibly powerful. It mirrors the sonic construction of the music on the album, one with a range of samples and a standout Slick Rick feature, perfectly. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: May 11, 2012
Art direction: HC, retOne
Label: Top Dawg Entertainment

Ab-Soul's cover for Control System mystified fans in the same way many of his rhymes do. Featuring sacred geometry, recognizably appropriated mythical symbols, and an interpretation of the Kabbalah Tree of Life, the HC and retOne-designed cover cut so many layers deep that it seemed even RapGenius couldn't unravel the mysteries of this mystic image.

Thankfully, Ab-Soul himself helped out with this: "Two words for you, brother: control system," he explains to Hip-Hop DX. "Simple as that. Everything that is mandatory in this country is a control system. A lot of the economy, society—it's all controlled. Politics. It's a big production, if you will. I just think I'm one of the people that's kind of aware of that." Perhaps the most conscious member of the Black Hippy collective, Ab-Soul's imagery here remains as thoughtful as his practice. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: June 22, 2010
Photography: Ben Watts
Art direction: Richard Nichols, Kenny J. Gravillis, Todd Russell
Art producer: Kristen Yiengst, Tai Linzie
Label: Def Jam

The Roots' ninth studio album and 11th album overall, How I Got Over, was an incredibly personal affair. It was not only about the state of race relations in the US at the time of its 2010 release, but was also hailed by the legacy hip-hop group's band members as a more "human" record. With myriad interpretations to be taken away from it, How I Got Over needed enigmatic artwork that could be read in a variety of ways.

Casting a moving crowd in silhouette provided the possibility of many deep reads—the viewer knows not who each of the members in the photograph are, translating to something surface that resonates inwardly. We are all trying to explain how we got over. That could be any of us on the cover.

Celebrity photographer Ben Watts (brother of Naomi) helmed the cover and promotional materials for this album cycle. With such clean imagery, it's hard to even miss ?uestlove's signature afro in the frame. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Aug. 20, 2013
Photography: Justin Hogan
Art direction: Jay West
Labels: A$AP Worldwide, Polo Grounds, RCA

Even as stark as the cover of A$AP Ferg's debut album appears, the young Harlem rapper was aiming for an abstract image that could be looked at from many angles, in an attempt to mirror the multifaceted elements of his music in visual form. Ferg is a painter, after all, so the overall aesthetic is something he pays extra attention to. To execute Trap Lord, he tapped photographer Justin Hogan and designer and painter Jay West. He's known West since art and design high school, who told Jay Z's Life and Times, "I definitely feel the connection between my art visually and his music sonically."

West adds, "When you hear a song like 'Hood Pope' or 'Fergivicious,' if you strip the surface of the lyrics, and you strip the imagery of mine, the feel and the moods match. If his music was a visual, I think it would be painted something like this." Ferg feels very strongly about West's imagery, to the point where he says, "There was no one else but him to represent my album, because he understands where I come from. We come from the same thing." —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Aug. 20, 2013
Photography: Jason Dill
Art direction: Anita Marisa Boriboon, Kunle Martins
Labels: Tan Cressida, Columbia

Remember how for a long time, all we knew about the young Odd Future affiliate, Earl Sweatshirt, was that he was at some type of boarding school in Samoa? As crazy as that was, Earl's reuniting with the group has retained the sense of mystery that was looming in his absence. This is how Earl has rapped, especially on his debut album, with a guarded sense of self—revealing only what needs to be shared but doing so in a way that proves him the wunderkind we all heard on "Earl."

All of that directly translates to the cover of Doris. Dark and implicative of the magistrate, Doris nods to Earl's heritage while he simultaneously shrugs it off. It's cool, descriptive, and deep, even if you have to read into the entire project to feel like you could actually understand it. Who cares? You get the world-weary flow of Earl just from the photo—the ignorance of tradition while standing firmly inside it. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Nov. 19, 2010
Photography: G.L. Wood
Art direction: Sandy Brummels
Graphic design: Olivia Smith (package design)
Labels: Young Money, Cash Money, Universal Motown

When Nicki Minaj was first introduced to the hip-hop scene as part of Young Money Entertainment, she was one of the few female rappers getting any attention. That's why it was especially bold and significant for her to release a debut album decked out in all pink everything.

Pink Friday portrays Nicki as a pink-haired and wide-eyed Barbie pop star, sitting like a doll with elongated legs, a powder pink gown, and matching stilletos. While the artwork for Pink Friday resembles the box of a brand new Barbie more than it does an album cover (even the "Pink" type in the title resembles Mattel's iconic Barbie font), Nicki is living proof that just because a girl can do "pretty in pink" doesn't mean she can't spit rhymes and sell records.

After releasing Pink Friday in November, Nicki went on to dominate the charts, dropping heavy hitters like "Roman's Revenge," "Moment for Life," and "Super Bass." Her all-pink album cover proved Nicki to be a serious, albeit unpredictable contender in the male-dominant rap game, and it's become as iconic as she has in a very short amount of time. —Susan Cheng

Release date: Sep. 9, 2013
Photography: Jenna Pinch
Art direction: Kanye West, DONDA
Label: Def Jam

2 Chainz's album cover for B.O.A.T.S. 2: Me Time is as minimal, glistening, and memorable as the first (which Complex called the second-best album cover of 2012). Featuring two strands of Cuban links on a white background, B.O.A.T.S is deeply symbolic to the hip-hop world (Raekwon had an album of the same title) and "the trap," says 2 Chainz.

Working with Kanye's DONDA left nothing to chance for how rich and detailed the new 2 Chainz cover could be. The Atlanta rapper we still fondly remember as Tity Boi said that he watched Kanye himself Photoshop this image. "Actually, this cover right here," 2 Chainz told Power 106, "and I don't even know if 'Ye wants me to say it, but he actually Photoshopped [it]. Like he did something. I didn't know you could erase on the computer. This computer eraser. Move some stuff over. So, I was like 'Man, you slick a geek. I didn't know you was that smart.'" In case you doubted Kanye's promise to bring good design to the world through DONDA, let this album cover prove you very, very wrong. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Aug. 26, 2013
Photography: Kacper Kasprzyk
Art direction: Matthew Williams
Art producer: Tai Linzie, Kristen Yiengst, Dawud West
Graphic design: Mike Carson
Labels: GOOD Music, Def Jam

It was a moment of excitement for Big Sean, earlier this year, when the Detroit rapper revealed the album artwork for his second studio album, Hall of Fame, via Instagram. "Too fresh!" he said in the short video clip he posted of the cover, turning the physical package over and over in his hands. He was stoked, and with good reason.

Sure, Hall of Fame may be a typical approach to an album cover, featuring a simple portrait of the artist, but there's something about the flash and sheen of the deluxe edition in contrast to the simplicity of the regular edition that makes it stand out. Maybe it's the colorways, or the styling on Sean, both of which nod to an early '90s feel. All eyes are on him, even as the flashes, colors, and swirls of the world around him try to detract from his presence. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: June 11, 2013
Art direction: Dom Rinaldi
Label: Infamous Records

In interviews leading up to this album's release, the storied Queensbridge rapper Prodigy described himself as a painter filling in the gaps between The Alchemist's beats. To this effect, Dom Rinaldi created a perverse, dripping portrait of Albert Einstein (the album's namesake) to accompany the tunes. It mirrored the aggression that Prodigy would slather across the release, where he brags about his skill to kill both lyrically and literally.

The pseudo-zombie nature of the imagery also alludes to Prodigy's return to form, after being released from prison. He has always been brilliant, much like Einstein. He just had to take a few years to re-emerge and piece himself together again. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Jan. 14, 2012
Label: Top Dawg Entertainment

Schoolboy Q was introduced to the world with the January 2011 release of Setbacks, an album about everything that kept him from rapping. The album was sort of a long list of excuses. Songs like "Druggys Wit Hoes" tell stories of drug habits getting in the way of his rap career, while songs like "Cycle" tell stories of gang violence doing the same. The following album Habits and Contradictions acts as a prequel, delving deeper into the setbacks distracting Q from his rap career. The prequel is far more complex than the sequel. HnC is the story of trying to do better while constantly having your actions contradict your habits.

Habits and Contradictions is an album about temptation and trying to overcome it. It is an album about trying to do better without knowing how. The cover embodies this struggle well. Schoolboy's blank and indifferent stare on the cover makes him seem helpless; he appears a slave to his habits. His face is presented as the focus of the cover, but next to him is the ski-masked face of a woman who very clearly has Q's ear. The woman is the living embodiment of temptation, her dress and her actions representing two temptations clearly articulated on the album—women and gangbanging.

The image component of the cover is met by the more obvious textual juxtaposition of both habits and contradictions. The cover features two verse excerpts directly representing the two sides of the album. The first verse labeled Exhibit A is a verse taken from "Raymond 1969" and represents "The Habits," telling the story of Q's upbringing and how it shaped the habits he is fighting today. Exhibit B is a verse taken from the opening track "Sacrilegious," explaining the alternative side of the album, "The Contradictions." The opening track presents Q's upbringing as religious and trying to fight seeing it as sacrilegious. The album and its cover serve the purpose of explaining the difficulty of doing better when habits are so deeply rooted. —Austin Weatherly

Release date: June 18, 2013
Photography: Ashley Rose, Karen Meyers, Jim Murton, Eric Altenburger
Graphic design: Miller McCormick
Labels: Rostrum Records

Mac Miller's much-anticipated second album Watching Movies With The Sound Off, proved to be much more introspective than his previous albums. Fast forward from when Mac was only beginning to make it big with Blue Slide Park, and the 21-year-old Pittsburgh rapper seems more mature and conscious of what it means to be a player in the rap game, starting with the album art for Watching Movies With The Sound Off. He shocked everyone by appearing seated at a table—naked.

Beyond Mac, the cover is very minimal. He sits in a modest wooden chair at a dining table with a tiny red apple and a vase of flowers. In the upper right-hand corner, an ornate, gold cherub dangles from the ceiling. Perhaps the most hilarious aspect of the cover is the "parental advisory" sticker plopped on top of his otherwise bare crotch region. All of this is symbolic of the intention for Mac's latest rhymes—to provoke while still showing that he has something real to say. He told Complex in a December 2011 interview that the album is a highly introspective and personal work, "kind of throwing it all out there and seeing what happens."

There's an honesty that anyone can appreciate in the album's eponymous track "Watching Movies"—"I'm just tryna make better music / get this money, share the profits...smoke some weed, get head while I do it / started out under the ground / they didn't fuck with me, now they all coming around." Despite baring all, both literally and figuratively, on Watching Movies With The Sound Off, Mac Miller looks and sounds like a fearless, seasoned rapper. The strategically-placed advisory warning, however, proves that Mac hasn't lost his sense of humor, even as he grows up and shows us that he can be serious, too. —Susan Cheng

Release date: Dec. 2, 2011
Photography: Jamel Shabazz
Art direction: Kenny J. Gravillis, Richard Nichols
Graphic design: Anna Tes
Label: Def Jam

The Roots' Undun is an album that deviates from the band's repertoire, let alone anything else in hip-hop—it's a story rap about a fictional character, told in reverse—but the cover shares something in common with another famous rap album cover, their own classic Things Fall Apart. The image of a kid doing a flip on a mattress—bookended by friends, in the middle of what's clearly a run-down neighborhood—was taken by legendary street photographer Jamel Shabazz, and is a perfect representation of what the album represents both in theme (a jubilant backflip in the middle of a downtrodden neighborhood, a celebratory moment of innocence captured in time before the life celebrating it went to shit) and in structure (a backflip, which is more or less what the album basically is). Like the backflip of the cover, it was an epic trick that's hard to forget. —Foster Kamer

Release date: March 24, 2009
Art direction: ehquestionmark
Label: Lex Records

When you're as prolific an artist as Daniel Dumiles, better known as MFDoom, now known as DOOM, you're liable to release something that's unappealing. But the more you put out, the better the law of averages keeps you floating near the apex of the bell curve.

The thing is, DOOM is actually talented enough to be at the crest of the positive side. This album cover, his first after relinquishing his title as MF, was an alien of sorts—a koan delivered as a relic that we could use in unlocking the masked MC's past. DOOM has always been so wordy that it's hard to unravel his lines. Here, he was finally offering a visual Rosetta Stone that alluded to how tongue-tied and enigmatic he could be. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: April 2, 2013
Photography: Eddy Tekeli
Art direction: Mark Ryden (artist), Tyler, The Creator
Labels: Odd Future, RED, Sony

No one can deny that Tyler, The Creator has a wicked sense of humor. In fact, it comes across so brilliantly on the cover of his third studio album, Wolf, that it's easy to forget how sinister and mean the album's raps are.

In the standard version of the album cover, Tyler is shown in two different portraits—one with his head up, longing for something that he isn't. It's as if he imagines himself sweeter than he actually is, his inhaler and the phrase GOLF allude to something that's beyond the scope of himself, with perhaps a sense of misled youth.

It's the deluxe version of the album cover that pulls this off even better. Painted by acclaimed neo-surrealist Mark Ryden, the cover shows a young Tyler on a bike in the woods. We've never seen Tyler look this innocent and vulnerable, but we like it that way—you almost feel like Tyler is revealing something about himself that has long been missing. Ryden even gets one of his signature baby heads on a tree trunk in this richly detailed, fascinating painting. "Tyler explained that part of the concept of his album is about going to summer camp," Ryden told Verbicide, "which is something he has never done. He wanted an image of himself on his bike (he says he loves his bike very much) in an idyllic forested environment. This was a very similar background environment in a previous painting of mine, California Brown Bear. I simply did a similar image, swapping out the bear for Tyler." The swap is fitting, and the double-cover continues Tyler's openly paradoxical examination of himself as one of the youngest, most talented, and most controversial artists in the game. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: June 14, 2013
Photography: Timothy Saccenti
Creative direction: Chris Feldmann
Graphic design: Mario Hugo, Chris Feldmann
Labels: Dreamville, Roc Nation, Columbia

The origin myth is a classic thread woven into our cultural awareness. The story of Original Sin is the most relatable, known story there is. So, to call your album Born Sinner is not just powerful—it's in the genes.

To that end, Cole and a talented team of all-star creatives Timothy Saccenti, Chris Feldmann, and Mario Hugo take a slightly evil approach to the design of the album, displaying a horned man in stark, glistening onyx that could easily be any of us—except only one can wear the crown (one resembling Basquiat's crown, at that). It's beautiful and somewhat terrifying, and has gotten flak from conspiracy theorists for promoting both the illuminati and Satanism. The rapper from North Carolina claims it has no spiritual meaning whatsoever. Take from that what you will, but it's hard not to feel some kind of darkness seeping off this statuette (similar to the vacant eeriness of the statues in Jay Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail album cover). —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Dec. 4, 2012
Photography: Marc Hom
Art direction: Greg Gigendad Burke
Graphic design: Fatima Bah, Greg Gigendad Burke
Labels: Atlantic, Rostrum

O.N.I.F.C. as an album title alone is already very provocative. The title paired with the cover screams opulence, bragging, and a complete absence of fucks given. The retro-inspired image has Wiz sitting shirtless in a leopard fur coat, tattoos exposed and radiating steeze. The image reference is Janis Joplin, for kush and oj's sake.

Similar to the album title and cover, the music keeps the not-so-humble bragging going, best shown on the song "Got Everything." Wiz playfully boasts his wealth and mocks it at the same time, in a way that makes him still relatable to the young kids who buy his albums. He sits on a royal throne, draped in expensive fur but appears impossibly indifferent. Wiz took a risk with this cover and stood behind it with the confidence of someone who can pull off wearing a leopard fur coat on his own album cover like it's nothing. —Austin Weatherly

Release date: June 18, 2013
Art direction: Kanye West, Virgil Abloh, Matthew Williams, Justin Saunders
Graphic design: Joe Perez
Labels: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

We first saw it as an Instagram photo via Virgil Abloh and Kim Kardashian when Kanye peformed on Saturday Night Live on May 19. It looked like a melted, distorted gold Jesus piece set on a black and white marble background, resembling Kanye's face, like a Midas who had attacked himself. Later came the image, a blank CD from Jean Touitou's Twitter, in a crystal-plastic case, with a single piece of red tape binding it. Written on the tape in felt-tip Sharpie was one word: YEEZUS. Below, it had the words, PLEASE ADD GRAFFITI. The album was done. It was coming.

By the time we learned that the album was actually arriving in the middle of June—an album that was reportedly being finished two weeks before it was supposed to drop, right up through the record label's deadlines—there was no telling what the album would be like, let alone what the cover would be.

And then, they started to appear: Wheatpasted posters around cities with a blank CD case on it, and that confrontational, subtle, and seductive piece of red tape, with the PLEASE ADD GRAFITTI directive followed by fans who drew on them offline and online. It was so brilliant, it bordered on cruel: In no way could anyone ever put anything on those posters to make the underlying image better, no matter how hard they tried. Kanye—a maximalist if there ever was one—had managed to pull off a moment of minimalist brilliance. And the CD that shined below the case, under the red tape, with its silver-reflective sheen glaring at you? It turned out to be the perfect representation of an album that was as unlikely as it was perfect in its chaotic, slapdash vision, with stalactite-sharp slivers of house, trap, and drill protruding from its base of rap sounds.

It's the kind of stunt only Kanye could pull off, that I'm too good for an album cover mentality, from a guy who had George Condo design the cover for his last album. It speaks to a certain amount of vision, sure, but moreover, the way in which Kanye West continues to transcend beyond his prescribed role as merely a rapper. —Foster Kamer

Release date: Aug. 15, 2011
Label: Fool's Gold

Danny Brown is a living, breathing cartoon character in the real world: his toothless grin, teased hair, and wild fashions make him loud yet still agreeable. That's not to mention The Adderall Admiral's ridiculous, unmistakable voice. His album cover for XXX is actually the subtlest part of his entry into the broader rap consciousness.

Though Danny is not one to be shy about his sexual proclivities, the XXX emblazoned on the Xanax bar here is not a direct pornography reference—it's a nod to the Roman numeral-styled age of the Detroit-based rapper. In interviews around the time of the album's release, he lauded the album cover's clean look. "The cover looked like a vinyl to me, so I was going with that whole vibe," he told Passion of the Weiss. Whether that exists through the classic typography's or the understated color palette, Danny was right—XXX pulls a definitive look. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Sep. 26, 2008
Photography: Darren Ankenman, Sydney Margetson
Art direction: Bill Orcutt, Greg Gigendad Burke, Ian Wright (artist)
Graphic design: Greg Gigendad Burke
Labels: Grand Hustle, Atlantic

Paper Trail was named for T.I.'s practice of writing his lyrics down on paper for the album, which is his sixth studio record. T.I. was intimately involved with the scrap-and-paste portrait that adorned Paper Trail. "We didn't want to just do a typical cover, especially for my sixth album," T.I. told MTV. "I wanted to try something a little more different. The illustration for Paper Trail pays an obvious homage to my rekindled affinity for writing my lyrics down, as well as displays my commitment to keep my art slanted towards the abstract."

The artist, Ian Wright, created a massive version out of actual stacked scraps of paper that he ripped by hand. It's not clear whether or not the name and image are an allusion to a body of evidence that existed, since T.I. was facing trial around the time of this release. Either way, the cover remains memorable and has a way of immediately recalling T.I.'s greatness, even in the context of the personal hardships he dealt with in the public eye. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: June 26, 2013
Label: Fool's Gold

Killer Mike and El-P have had an amazing couple of years. Following the success of their respective solo albums in 2012, where they both re-emerged as dominant voices in the hip-hop world, the two came together in 2013 to create their Run the Jewels project. When paired up, they're so powerful that it can be downright scary.

That power is mirrored on the album's cover art. Sure, the cartoonish illustration nods to the fact that this is in some ways just a game, but it's a game with real costs—don't do what these two say, and your hands are coming off. Run the Jewels is a command and a process—one you have to heed under the power of El and Mike's insistence and energy. The album cover perfectly mirrors that force, even in a slightly playful way. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Sep. 24, 2013
Art direction: Drake, Kadir Nelson (artist)
Labels: OVO Sound, Young Money, Cash Money, Republic

What can you say about this one that hasn't been said? Drake previously gave himself the Che treatment on the cover of Thank Me Later, and the "Share A Moment With Drake" intimacy of the Take Care cover perfectly summed up the Drake ethos. But this? This was something different: Two covers, one portraying Drake as a child, and the other, as an adult, both done by well-known painter and author Kadir Nelson.

The theme of transition, with the audacity that the profile of Drake's mug—both as a child, and an adult—against a bright blue sky means something. It's a new kind of iconography and a different kind of stunting, worlds away from the pen-and-pixel days of Cash Money Millionares, the kind of thing most rappers (let alone the one who signed him, Lil Wayne) could never, ever pull off. Drake's dome as the center of the sky, as if to imply that it—or its growth—is the thing that makes a bluebird day brilliant and beautiful, or that Drake's growth represents a different kind of evolution, one you can take something from. And the thing is: Some people actually think that!

But that's Drake, isn't it? Audacious, daring, emotive, equal measures offputting sincerity and self-serious gravitas. Kadir himself told us, "I like to depict the iconic figures who have great stories of overcoming obstacles and fulfilling their dreams, and I think Drake is a really great example of that." Needless to say: It's basically perfect. —Foster Kamer

Release date: Feb. 16, 2010
Art direction: Brent Rollins
Label: Rhymesayers Entertainment

The Stimulus Package has top-notch raps about Freeway's wins and losses over Jake One beats. "One Foot In" details tales of a hustler trying to make ends meet on any coast; he says, "One foot in the Game, other in the Gutter." The album centers around the theme of economic relief, not in the way of President Obama's stimulus package, but by any means necessary. Freeway spends the 15-track album explaining his own definition of economic relief. The new definition is shown in the album's packaging by Complex's own Creative Director, Brent Rollins.

The cover features Freeway's face on a US dollar; the album packaging as a whole resembles a wad of folded money with a band labeling it "Freeway and Jake One's Stimulus Package." It's a clear distinction between a federal bailout and a bailout by the means that the album's tracks detail. —Austin Weatherly

Release date: Aug. 8, 2011
Art direction: Riccardo Tisci, Virgil Abloh
Art producer: Alex Haldi, Kristen Yiengst, Scott Townsend, Todd Russell
Labels: Roc-A-Fella, Roc Nation, Def Jam

It was fitting that an album full of million-dollar beats—made by the two most popular rappers on the planet (one of whom happens to be the most popular producer on the planet)—would have what essentially amounts to a million-dollar cover, or something that looked like it. The cover for 'Ye and Jay's big-ticket blockbuster luxury rap album Watch The Throne was designed by Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci, because of course it was.

Taking symbols and shapes representing power and royalty—diamonds, crosses, wreaths, arrows, and daggers—Tisci patterned them in a kaleideoscopic scheme, and inverted them inward, facing against each other, representing both the regal nature of the two men who'd created the album, the consolidation of their collective strength, and the battle for power implicit in the album's title. Like a Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, the cover represented the chance for everyone to feel like they owned something special, something rich, something that represented obscene value, and yet, when owned by those same people, truly served to confirm the worth and riches of the guys who made it. It was subtle and overt, audacious and nuanced, and nothing short of a stunning high-bar that will take a long time to clear. —Foster Kamer

Release date: May 15, 2009
Photography: Julian Alexander, Karin Catt
Art direction: Julian Alexander
Graphic design: Julian Alexander
Labels: Shady, Aftermath, Interscope

Eminem released the artwork for Relapse through his Twitter account in 2009. Following the intensely personal arc of his work, this artwork is meant to mirror his struggle with addiction to prescription drugs. The image shows Eminem's face made out of a mosaic of thousands of pills, with a prescription drug label made out to Em by Dr. Dre.

The entire album artwork follows this rubric, from front to back, including a tracklist that looks as if it's been ripped from a bottle of pills. Grammy Award-winning art director Julian Alexander designed and executed the concept, one that inspired many to recreate the look. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: July 13, 2012
Photography: Matthew Salacuse, Andrew Zaeh
Art direction: Alex Haldi
Graphic design: Alex Haldi
Label: Def Jam

The first thing you notice about Nas' Life Is Good album cover is the green dress that Kelis, his ex-wife, wore on their wedding day. The album title and cover art reveal the current status of an MC who has reached a point of success that no longer requires him to prove himself. From the pensive look on his face, Nas seems to be reminiscing about the 19 eventful years he's been in the rap game, and perhaps how his personal life has evolved along with it.

Nas revealed to the press that the visual concept of the album cover occurred naturally. He didn't speak to Kelis before he decided to pose with a representation of her dress, yet it works as a powerful image of his vulnerability.

Beyond the presence of the dress, Nas exhibits many symbols of his accomplished life on the cover. You see him suited up and holding a glass of champagne while dripping in jewelry. However, the look on his face shows that success is a sidenote amongst the very human reality of an ended relationship and starting over. Twelve albums later, Nas has continued to evolve not only in his life but in his career. Life Is Good is a testament to his legacy in hip-hop, both with this unforgettable cover and an honest, hard-hitting, New York-repping record. —Diane Cho

Release date: Sep. 15, 2009
Art direction: Bill Sienkiewicz (artist), Scott Sandler
Graphic design: Scott Sandler
Labels: Dream On, GOOD Music, Universal Motown

The album art for Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon: The End Day was the perfect way to introduce him to the world. Upon listening to the album, one learns that Cudi is an introspective, daring artist who compares his feeling of being an outsider (one which he dissects and ultimately celebrates) with being a "man on the moon."

On the cover, his eyes are closed and covered by a pair of shades. One sees a lot of activity going on in his mind through the changes in intensity and color, as befits an artist whose mind is built differently from others'. It's as if his momentary escape from the world has landed him on the loneliest place in the world, the moon, yet from there, he gains insight and is able to be on the outside looking in for once.

The Man on the Moon cover was conceptualized by Eisner Award winning artist Bill Sienkiewicz. The time it took to create the cover delayed the album release from August 25, 2009 to September 15, 2009, which took Cudi out of the running for the 2010 Grammy Awards.

At the time, Cudi tweeted, "Pissed. I don't make this years grammy deadline now, jan 2011 no one will care enough for me to win one n jays album drops days before mine. Great."

In hindsight, Cudi's album art delay was worth it. The iconic image set a precedent for the rest of his music and visuals to come; he's continually outdone himself since. —Diane Cho

Release date: Nov. 15, 2011
Photography: Hyghly Alleyne, Lamar Taylor
Art direction: Martin "Drop" Wong
Graphic design: Martin "Drop" Wong
Labels: Young Money, Cash Money, Republic

"Money can't buy happiness" is a tired, old saying, but it's especially true in the case of rappers like Drake who express the sentiment lyrically, against the backdrop of conflicting emotions, growing up, and wrestling with fame. Despite the tendency to brag about wealth as a measure of one's success, entertainers seem simultaneously obsessed with and depressed by lives of opulence. While Drake's previous covers reveal his taste for fame and and an "I just wanna be successful" take on things, Take Care depicts him in the aftermath of acquiring all the money, cars, and clothes, and it's not what we, or anyone, expected at the time.

Photographed by Hyghly Alleyne and Lamar Taylor, with art direction from Martin "Drop" Wong, Drake appears downcast and reflective on Take Care, with his eyes averted from the viewer. In an interview with MTV in 2011, Drake compares his current lifestyle to that of a fictional stripper he describes in "Houstonatlantavegas," a song from So Far Gone. In the song, Drake sings and raps about a stripper who, tempted by money, remains trapped in her world. "It was a world that, being from Toronto, I seemed to look at from the outside," he says.

Drake not only entered the world he pictured in his raps, but he actually went to the top of that world very quickly. He says, "I used to stare at this world through a glass window and, like, two to three years later, I become a king in that world."

Despite becoming "king" of that world, Drake appears solemn and even wistful on the cover of Take Care. Though the rapper is draped in gold chains and surrounded by lavish paintings, the image contains inner turmoil and longing. "That's what that album cover is about, and there is a lot of deep thought involved in that, 'cause you can go crazy doing this," he elaborated.

Take Care is indeed a portrait of a man who struggles to stay sane in light of the growing fame and pressure to deliver. The cover is the introduction to music that gives life to Take Care's overall concept. —Susan Cheng

Release date: Aug. 14, 2012
Photography: Fabien Montique, Tai Linzie
Art direction: Guido Callarelli, Justin Saunders
Art producer: Tai Linzie
Label: Def Jam

There's something so elegant, clean, and instantly classic about the cover of Based on a T.R.U. Story, the debut album from Atlanta's 2 Chainz (not as Tity Boi). Created by Guido Callarelli and Justin Saunders, it features nothing more than two gold chains on a black backdrop, presumably the chest of our hero MC.

Creating a rap album about money, women, and fame isn't a new concept, but to visually take such a minimal approach to the design leaves one feeling a sense of humility here. Even the deluxe version held on to its modesty, simply draping a two-chained Versace jacket over the top of Tity Boi's swag. Even as the rapper reached the top, reissuing his record in a grand fashion, he still held on to something unpretentious—at least in his graphic design. —Dale Eisinger

Release date: Nov. 22, 2010
Photography: Fabien Montique
Art direction: Virgil Abloh, George Condo (artist), Kanye West
Label: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

True to Kanye West's style, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy garnered controversy for its provocative album cover, even before it hit shelves in November 2010. Kanye is known for possessing a taste for fine art and making headlines—two things that came together perfectly (and beautifully) in this cover by well-known contemporary artist George Condo.

The vibrant album cover is one of the many paintings Condo made for West. It portrays a fiendish, teeth-baring West reclined on a blue lounge chair with a bottle in his hand, while a fearsome-looking, winged creature with a polka dot tail straddles his leg, her nipple and buttocks visible.

It was West who first announced the alleged ban of the cover, going on one of his famous Twitter rants. "So Nirvana can have a naked human being on they cover, but I can't have a PAINTING of a monster...," he tweeted, alluding to Nirvana's Nevermind cover. "In the '70s, album covers had actual nudity...It's so funny that people forget that...Everything has been so commercialized now," he vented.

It turns out that West had approached Condo about designing the cover and had asked for "something that will be banned." In other words, it was a calculated effort, and it provoked important discussion. West's self-censorship seemingly has as much to do with MBDTF's message as the album art does.

Much of West's fifth studio album lyrically focuses on the themes of fame, wealth, sex, power, self-image, and self-doubt. The album art appropriately depicts the lavish and decadent tendencies of a celebrity, while the album itself is a reflection of the rapper's rocky relationship with fame, one which has both thrown him into the limelight and subjected him to more attack than ever before. West was merely beating the press to the punch when he decided to ban his own album cover. —Susan Cheng

Release date: Oct. 22, 2012
Photography: Dan Monick, Paula Oliver, Dwane LaFleur, Danny Smith
Art direction: Kendrick Lamar
Labels:  Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath, Interscope

When released, good kid, m.A.A.d city was hailed by critics as an instant classic. Everything about the album was different—not just Kendrick Lamar's voice, or his rhymes, which we had already heard before on earlier mixtapes like Section 80, but the way it was structured: As a disjointed Compton epic in the grand tradition of so many of the gangland stories that have come from there, in the grand tradition of great story raps, as produced by Dr. Dre, and as seen through the eyes of young K-Dot. The songs were different, the structure of the album was different, the beats, the ideas, all of it. But the cover was the first thing we saw. And that's when we knew it was different.

For one thing, there are two covers, and most rap albums—let alone albums, period—only have one. Both are equally great. But most of all, both covers are enhanced in a very serious way by listening to the album, after which, they became that much more meaningful and significant.

There was the first cover: A Polaroid photo of Kendrick Lamar as a toddler, at a table with a 40 on it, being held by one man and surrounded by two others, all three with black censoring bars over their eyes. Men who either couldn't or wouldn't give their clearance to Kendrick Lamar, or maybe who weren't even asked, an allusion to both the fate of anonymity laid upon men growing up in Compton—if they made it past being children—and to the idea of being literally raised by the hood.

Then there's the second cover, the one everyone really loved: Another Polaroid, picturing nothing more than a van. But only a listen—or maybe two—would reveal the significance of that van, which is the catalyst and setting for so many of the crucial moments that take place over the course of the album. In this, the van serves as a perfect metaphor for the album, ominious and looming, its tinted out windows obscuring whatever might be inside. But like K-Dot, once you climb inside that van—or that album—life's going to be very, very different. Subtle, sure, but a hell of a statement, too. —Foster Kamer

Release date: Nov. 24, 2008
Photography: Danny Clinch
Art direction: Virgil Abloh, Willo Perron, Kris Yiengst, Brian Donnelly (KAWS)
Labels: Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam

Kanye West decided to encapsulate the many shades of heartbreak in his daring fourth album, 808s & Heartbreak, the revolutionary cover that tops our list. In this humorless 13-track production, West isolates himself from the bold and boisterous songs of his previous records, and the outcome is a stark contrast from anything he had ever done before, both sonically and visually.

The original album cover features nothing but a deflated heart and a strip of subdued, Graduation-reminiscent swatches. Save for the pop of the heart's red hue, photographed by Kristen Yiengst with art direction by Virgil Abloh and Willo Perron, the cover lacks the loudness West usually exhibits in his visuals. Kanye's minimalist approach was groundbreaking at the time. This stripped down look may not have been entirely new, but Kanye was the first artist to successfully pull off and popularize such an aesthetic. In fact, without 808s & Heartbreak many of the other album covers on this list would not exist.

The gray, relatively bare cover evokes both emptiness and vulnerability. It's an appropriate cover for one of the rapper's most introspective albums, detailing his thoughts about splitting with his fiancé and dealing with the death of his mother.

The vulnerability is evident, and the deluxe album cover of 808s and Heartbreak by KAWS takes it a step further. West had KAWS incorporate the visual artist's iconic gloved hands onto Yiengst's original photo of the deflated heart. Unlike the original cover, there's more life in this version. The panel of colors on the side appear stronger and more vivid. There's something more urgent and poignant in the forceful tearing of the already-crushed heart. This cover alone is a testament to West's talent, that even in his darkest moments, he's able to deliver a brave, honest, and relatable album that challenges everything he had ever done before and influenced the next generation of rappers, from Drake to Future. At number one, 808s & Heartbreak leaves an undeniable mark on the history of album art. —Susan Cheng

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