Greg Burke's 10 Favorite Rap Album Covers of the '90s

This is part of a daily, week-long feature series where we asked legendary designers about their favorite rap album covers from the '90s.

Greg Burke is the VP Creative Director at Atlantic Records. He has been instrumental in the last 20 years of music's visual culture, having designed T.I.'s Paper Trail, The Blueprint 3 for Jay Z, and Group Home's Livin' Proof. His time at Tommy Boy Records was spent working on the Masters at Work Our Time Is Coming album. At Elektra Recordings, he designed Missy Elliot's first three album covers and Jet's first LP. Burke's resume also includes holding the position of Art Director at Warner Bros. With such a heavy history in the industry, it's no wonder that Burke has some unparalleled insight on the best album art of the past few decades. Check out Greg Burke's 10 Favorite Rap Album Covers of the '90s.

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Year: 1995
Art direction: Alli Truch
Designer: Brett Kilroe

"Visually, it's an impactful cover. Plus, no one at the time had ever thought to put such a personal item of theirs on the cover. Sure, we had seen family pics of artists, and pics of them as children, but to use your public assistance card was a glimpse of creative brilliance.

Though this album didn't influence any of the work I've done, it did inspire me to think outside the norm. I'm sure in today's current music climate this kind of album would be impossible to pull off because of all the people who would be saying things like, 'This is clowning our artist' or 'He doesn't look good in this picture.' So for me this will always be on my top ten list."

Year: 1990
Art direction: The Drawing Board
Illustration: Bill Sienkiewicz

"I think everyone should take a look at this album cover. This is impact—in your face and straight to the point. I may not love the type used for the album title, but I can overlook that due to the strength of the illustration and the overall concept. Plus, the type is a reflection of the time period it was designed in.

This cover influenced the last T.I. album cover I did. The illustrator is the same, but the illustration on the gun in T.I.'s cover isn't 100 percent where I wanted it due to time. This illustrator also illustrated another of my favorite covers, Bobby Digital in Stereo."

Year: 1998
Art direction: David Calderley and RZA
Photography: Michael Lavine
Illustration: Bill Sienkiewicz

"This cover has influenced me in so many ways, because the art director is someone I look up to and often try to get a nod of approval from with my own work. This cover is one of the first that truly got the Blaxploitation reference perfect. This is one cover I wish I did. What I truly love about this cover is, 30 years from now, it will still be a great piece of art, and some designer will see it and get the same feeling I got when I first saw that EPMD cover."

Year: 1999
Art direction: Jane, Kiku Ohe
Photography: Alvaro Gonzalez-Campo, Brian "B+" Cross, Calabazitaz Tiernaz

"When I saw this cover, I thought about how powerful a simple portrait could be, but at the same time—due to the work that I do—I know there's no such thing as a simple portrait. The lighting with the red and yellow gels, the mood, the facial expression, crushing the blacks so the hair recedes into the background—these were all things that needed to be flushed out creatively before getting on set to do the shoot. Also, I think not having any logo or type was amazing for the time period because creatively that was a hard thing to get approved at the time.

There was also a feeling of nostalgic black history and pride to this cover image, which also made it feel honest and pure. One of the things that fascinates me about this album now is how when you look back at it, you can see the slight inspiration within it for Mos Def's The New Danger album cover."

Year: 1996
Art direction: De La Soul, Michelle Willems
Photography: Eric Johnson

"When this album came out, and knowing all the De La covers before it, I had to buy the CD, not only for the music, but I wanted to see what the rest of the package would be inside. I was disappointed with the inside package, but the music and the cover made up for it at the time. I was impressed with this cover because it shows that the artist doesn't have to be on the cover all the time. If an artist has built up a reputation for good music, which De La had, then it opens a wider creative door for what could be on their cover. And with little to no Internet or blog chatter in the '90s, artists were free to express any visual ideas or concepts they wanted, without someone with no accomplishments blogging for their own two seconds of false fame."

Year: 1994
Art direction: The Drawing Board
Photography: Danny Clinch

"In the early '90s, Redman could do no wrong. I think all of New York knew who Redman was. When the album for Dare Iz a Darkside came out, I remember looking at it with other designers and all of us were thinking, "This is crazy." It's one of those covers that inspires and makes you want to push your own recording artist to take risks (and do some insane idea of your own). This cover popped because of the concept. The overall red tone helped, but it was the concept that made me look at this cover. A while after it came out, there were talks that they just copied the Funkadelic Maggot Brain cover, but I don't feel that was the case."

Year: 1994
Art direction: David Calderly
Photography: Christian Witkin

"It's the simplest of covers, but it's right to the point of, 'This is Gravediggaz.' I think it was their first album, so the marketing rule, 'you have to show their face' was there while still being a great design. I think Onyx tried to do the same thing with BACDAFUCUP. They even threw a gun in it for impact. It paled to the design of the Gravediggaz for me, which makes me think that it's such a strong design in how subtle it is, while still being aggressive and in your face. The high energy expressions of the group, along with the black and white slightly toned photo...the composite position of each member and the hard crop of it all into a CD square forces you to take note of this group, and to me that's a successful design."

Year: 1999

"This album, just like Gravediggaz, inspires me to this day in terms of how to get impactful group shots. When I saw it, I was fascinated at how well all the elements worked together. When I look at it today, I love that it's not about retouching your artist so they look perfect. It's not about in-focus or out-of-focus. It's about a strong group shot and a great design sense of how to crop a photo for impact, plus perfect logo placement and size."

Year: 1997-2000
Art direction: Pen & Pixel

"My number 9 is all that No Limit artwork. For a designer to say they liked this seems like it has to be a joke, and to tell the truth, it is...a little bit. Face it, a lot of that stuff, or all [of it], was really bad. But it was really great at the same time, and to this day, and beyond, it will hold a place in rap history.

That design actually helped me with one of our artists. I remember while designing it, I was laughing and thinking, 'Just keep adding more No Limit stuff. I can always take it away later.' The end result was perfect for the artist and his style of music, and he loved it. Later on, someone tried to commission me to work on their album because they saw his and wanted the same style. I declined. It was not the style of design I wanted to keep doing. They [Pen & Pixel] created a visual language that everyone recognized."

Year: 1999
Photography: Jonathan Mannion

"This album came out when Photoshop was on the rise, so everyone was going crazy with layers and filters and forgetting about what good design really was, but this album came out and showed that you can have your layers and filters as long as you respect the design."