Latest / The Bootleg Kev Podcast / #391 - Isaac Pelayo
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: My name is Isaac Palau. Check me out on the
- 0:01Speaker 1: Botlet kV podcast.
- 0:06Speaker 2: Yo Boutlet cav podcast. Man special guests in here. My
- 0:10Speaker 2: guy Isaac Paleo is in the building. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome,
- 0:14Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. For people who don't know, this
- 0:17Speaker 2: guy is an incredible artist, incredible painter. You've seen his works.
- 0:21Speaker 2: If you are a fan of Griselda, would you say
- 0:25Speaker 2: that your because you have like a signature style, it's
- 0:28Speaker 2: like it is it realism with your own twist, because
- 0:32Speaker 2: I don't I know that there's like, you know, words
- 0:35Speaker 2: for certain styles of painting.
- 0:36Speaker 1: Well, the foundation of my work is definitely realism. It's
- 0:39Speaker 1: a figurative, but in the last like I don't know,
- 0:46Speaker 1: four or five years of it, introducing more street contemporary
- 0:52Speaker 1: modern stuff towards you know, mixing it with the realism.
- 0:56Speaker 2: Like you'll have like a real like like some realism
- 0:58Speaker 2: and then like the smiley face.
- 1:01Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that's part of like you know,
- 1:03Speaker 1: that's a spin of contemporary mixing with the classical realism
- 1:08Speaker 1: that I do. I do a lot of Renaissance type
- 1:13Speaker 1: of imagery or religious iconography, and I'll mix out with
- 1:16Speaker 1: some street shit, you know, it's mixing it with maybe
- 1:19Speaker 1: some spray paint, oil pastels, kind of introducing a new
- 1:23Speaker 1: element to it, giving some layered depth and texture. That's
- 1:27Speaker 1: that's been in recent years though, But the foundation of
- 1:29Speaker 1: my work is definitely realism.
- 1:32Speaker 2: How long have you been a full time artist?
- 1:37Speaker 1: I would say since since the beginning of twenty twenty.
- 1:42Speaker 2: That's when you were like, all in, Yeah, there was there,
- 1:45Speaker 2: you are you're making money before twenty twenty.
- 1:47Speaker 1: Though, yeah, for sure, but twenty twenty was like that
- 1:50Speaker 1: was the pivoting moment. That's when things really cracked off.
- 1:54Speaker 2: Was that because because obviously for people who don't know you, uh,
- 1:59Speaker 2: if you have seen any of these paintings that you've done,
- 2:03Speaker 2: there's like the third eye and yeah, it's kind of
- 2:06Speaker 2: like a signature Isaac thing, right, And we were just
- 2:09Speaker 2: talking you just dropped the Tupac print. How long would
- 2:12Speaker 2: you do that painting?
- 2:13Speaker 1: I did that painting January of twenty seventeen. That was
- 2:17Speaker 1: the first piece that I did incorporating a third eye,
- 2:21Speaker 1: and it kind of like started. I ended up doing
- 2:24Speaker 1: a whole series based off of it because it became
- 2:26Speaker 1: really copy and then so I did a whole show
- 2:31Speaker 1: a whole body of work surrounding that didn't think it
- 2:34Speaker 1: was going to take off as much as it did.
- 2:35Speaker 1: But you know, when West picked up the concept, it
- 2:41Speaker 1: really blew up Westside Gun.
- 2:43Speaker 2: For people who don't know, ye yeah, yeah, the Westside
- 2:45Speaker 2: Gun saw that painting and then just contacted you. And
- 2:47Speaker 2: you know, he's got this condo in Phoenix that's just
- 2:51Speaker 2: like a little art museum. It's got so many of
- 2:53Speaker 2: your pieces in it. Yeah. Man, I've been at Buffalo
- 2:55Speaker 2: to the store and your stuff's in there.
- 2:56Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got a gang of my shift.
- 2:58Speaker 2: For how many paintings has he got off you?
- 3:02Speaker 1: Probably worth of thirty now, damn, yeah, he's probably he's
- 3:06Speaker 1: got a lot. He's got a few sculptures, a couple
- 3:08Speaker 1: of small pieces, a ton of prints for.
- 3:11Speaker 2: You, Like uh, you know, like I feel like when
- 3:15Speaker 2: you when you do something like the Third I think
- 3:16Speaker 2: you didn't know obviously that it was going to change
- 3:18Speaker 2: change things for you.
- 3:20Speaker 1: No, not at all. It's funny because I get I
- 3:24Speaker 1: talk about that situation quite a bit, and still to
- 3:28Speaker 1: this day, I had no idea. I was just so
- 3:32Speaker 1: The story the way it goes is, I was in
- 3:36Speaker 1: college in Vegas and I dropped out to UNLV. Yeah,
- 3:39Speaker 1: I was going to UNLV. I was technically studying art,
- 3:42Speaker 1: but you know I lived right by UNLV. Their art
- 3:45Speaker 1: programs are assa.
- 3:47Speaker 2: I lived off of a damn like right by the
- 3:49Speaker 2: Blueberry Hill restaurant off of Trop Okay, I was on
- 3:54Speaker 2: that was on Flamingo and it was over there somewhere
- 3:58Speaker 2: shout outs of Vegas.
- 3:59Speaker 1: You're you're more like northern, You're like more northern, right
- 4:03Speaker 1: north northeast.
- 4:04Speaker 2: I was not. I was like right behind you and LV.
- 4:06Speaker 2: So I was like Flamingo, like right by Blueberryhill, that restaurant.
- 4:09Speaker 2: It's like I was.
- 4:10Speaker 1: I was. I was living in south though, like like
- 4:12Speaker 1: Moore Henderson. Okay, I lived on Eastern and Sunset Okay.
- 4:16Speaker 1: It was right across the Straight from mccaren.
- 4:19Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 4:20Speaker 1: When it was mccaren, I think they call it something else.
- 4:22Speaker 1: Now I think it's still mccaron no, because I try
- 4:24Speaker 1: to look it up really and it's like some other name.
- 4:27Speaker 2: Yeah, you were going to school for art, which is
- 4:30Speaker 2: a weird thing. I feel like when people say I
- 4:32Speaker 2: go to school for.
- 4:33Speaker 1: Art, I'm like, really, I was majoring in fine art,
- 4:36Speaker 1: but when I got there, I quickly realized that their
- 4:39Speaker 1: art programs aren't really shit, you know, they got it.
- 4:42Speaker 2: Was like a hustle, yeah, not a purposeful hustle. But
- 4:45Speaker 2: there's certain people when they say that they like this
- 4:48Speaker 2: is their major. I'm like, I mean, do you want
- 4:50Speaker 2: to be an artist? Because are they going to teach
- 4:52Speaker 2: you how to be? Like like I might teach you
- 4:54Speaker 2: like technique or like history or something, but like I
- 4:57Speaker 2: feel like you either got the sauce or you don't.
- 5:00Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I I wasn't even planning on going
- 5:03Speaker 1: to school. I wanted to go to Pasady and Art Center.
- 5:05Speaker 1: That's where most people aspire to go to when they
- 5:08Speaker 1: want to learn, you know, more contemporary stuff kind of
- 5:11Speaker 1: further and expand their horizons. But I went to please
- 5:18Speaker 1: you know, my excess parents, my parents, and it was
- 5:22Speaker 1: just I just sort of fell into it. I was like,
- 5:23Speaker 1: all right, fuck it, I guess I'm going to go
- 5:25Speaker 1: to school.
- 5:26Speaker 2: You know, I could my schoolt everybody up still kind
- 5:29Speaker 2: of do what I want.
- 5:30Speaker 1: Got the little college experience. But you know, when I
- 5:34Speaker 1: got to when I when I started going to school,
- 5:36Speaker 1: I was already really proficient in drawing. My portraits in
- 5:41Speaker 1: pencil were already pretty realistic. And I already had a
- 5:44Speaker 1: sense of a backstory to my work. And you know,
- 5:49Speaker 1: I had taken art history in high school, and I
- 5:52Speaker 1: already I felt like I was already I had already
- 5:56Speaker 1: built a solid foundation as as an you know, young art. Ye,
- 6:00Speaker 1: I already had a style. I was already drawing pretty good.
- 6:03Speaker 1: I'd already been exhibiting my work. I mean, I started
- 6:06Speaker 1: exhibiting my work when I was ten, So by the
- 6:09Speaker 1: time I was eighteen, you were already great. Yeah, I
- 6:11Speaker 1: mean I wouldn't say great. I just already had almost
- 6:15Speaker 1: a ten year head start. So I felt like school
- 6:19Speaker 1: was just kind of unnecessary. I already knew what I wanted.
- 6:22Speaker 1: I already knew where I was for the most part headed.
- 6:27Speaker 1: I just figured, you know, ifuck it, maybe i'll, I
- 6:30Speaker 1: don't know, maybe I'll learned the business side. I should
- 6:32Speaker 1: have studied business management or maybe even you know, theater,
- 6:37Speaker 1: because you know, I was doing acting too, so I
- 6:39Speaker 1: probably would have benefited.
- 6:40Speaker 2: More from that.
- 6:41Speaker 1: But yeah, I was there for about two years. I
- 6:45Speaker 1: dropped out, and when I dropped out, I started painting.
- 6:48Speaker 1: I wasn't painting, yeah, because that's always you'll see people
- 6:51Speaker 1: who are really get at drawing and then they end
- 6:53Speaker 1: up getting into painting or tattooing. Yeah, and I'm always like, yo,
- 6:56Speaker 1: that feels like such a far thing to be good
- 6:59Speaker 1: at that.
- 6:59Speaker 2: And then like, cause it's different tools, Like.
- 7:02Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a different way of making art, that's for sure.
- 7:06Speaker 1: But you know, my dad's a pretty well known artist
- 7:10Speaker 1: too in the LA community, and his work is some
- 7:14Speaker 1: of the real the most incredible pencil realism I've seen.
- 7:18Speaker 1: Would I would argue he's one of the best pencil
- 7:21Speaker 1: artists that I've ever seen. Yeah, So by the time
- 7:26Speaker 1: I was eighteen, I was already drawing pretty close to
- 7:28Speaker 1: that level where we would exhibit our work together side
- 7:32Speaker 1: by side, and people would mistake my work for his work,
- 7:35Speaker 1: and I would kind of fall into the shadows. And
- 7:38Speaker 1: so I already knew then that I wanted to veer
- 7:40Speaker 1: off and do you know something different that made me
- 7:44Speaker 1: stand out so that I had my own identity, And
- 7:47Speaker 1: then painting seemed like the right fit. And luckily, you know,
- 7:52Speaker 1: I did. Because it was the right fit. It was
- 7:54Speaker 1: able to create big work, work that people responded to. People.
- 7:59Speaker 1: It's so hard to sell pencil drawings. People respond more
- 8:03Speaker 1: to paintings, the detection.
- 8:05Speaker 2: If someone's gonna spend money on something, Yeah, spend money
- 8:08Speaker 2: on painting.
- 8:09Speaker 1: There aren't pencil drawings that, you know, are as coveted
- 8:15Speaker 1: as paintings are. You know, if you look at the
- 8:18Speaker 1: history of of the auction houses and all the pieces
- 8:21Speaker 1: of art that has ever sold for the most amount
- 8:23Speaker 1: of money, it's all paintings or sculptures. Drawings they fall
- 8:27Speaker 1: short of it. You know. There's some drawings, I mean,
- 8:29Speaker 1: if you're fucking da Vincian, you got like one.
- 8:32Speaker 2: If you're if you're that name and you're this is
- 8:34Speaker 2: a da Vinci hand hand drawn thing. People are gonna
- 8:38Speaker 2: spend money on that. Yeah, too many? You know, that's priceless.
- 8:41Speaker 2: But yeah, pencil drawings aren't. They're really hard.
- 8:44Speaker 1: To sell in the in the in our world. So
- 8:47Speaker 1: I knew, you know, painting was definitely my calling when
- 8:50Speaker 1: I and I honestly it was pretty natural. I started painting,
- 8:54Speaker 1: picked up a bunch of cheap tools from fucking Michaels
- 8:57Speaker 1: I think, and just started painting my I painted it
- 9:01Speaker 1: every day for a whole fucking year. Wow, And that
- 9:03Speaker 1: was like my four year college experience on my own.
- 9:08Speaker 1: Right now, I painted every day with Bob Ross playing
- 9:10Speaker 1: in the background, and that was like I had like
- 9:13Speaker 1: it was like a you know, eight ten years practice
- 9:18Speaker 1: smashed into one one year. So after one full year,
- 9:23Speaker 1: I painted all every day of twenty sixteen, and then
- 9:27Speaker 1: January twenty seventeen, I decided to paint the Poc portrait.
- 9:30Speaker 1: I had always wanted to do a portrait of Tupac.
- 9:33Speaker 1: That's one of my idols growing up, one of my
- 9:36Speaker 1: inspirations because I do music too, so as someone that was,
- 9:39Speaker 1: you know, a lyricist enthusiast, That's someone that I've always admired,
- 9:44Speaker 1: and I wanted to do a portrait of him that
- 9:48Speaker 1: was different from everything else that I'd seen. My dad had,
- 9:51Speaker 1: you know, had done a few portrait of Tupac that
- 9:53Speaker 1: I felt were fucking beautiful. I was like, I wanted
- 9:56Speaker 1: to do something that competed. And it didn't dawn on
- 10:00Speaker 1: me right away to do a third eye. That just
- 10:04Speaker 1: happened midway. I was already halfway into painting it, and
- 10:07Speaker 1: I was at the time I was going through it
- 10:10Speaker 1: through a lot of shit with my parents, with my ex,
- 10:13Speaker 1: I was struggling, dropped out of college. I was, you know,
- 10:16Speaker 1: doing tattoos on the side to pay rent selling a
- 10:19Speaker 1: couple of.
- 10:19Speaker 2: So you were doing tattoos too.
- 10:21Speaker 1: I've been doing tattoos since I was fifteen.
- 10:23Speaker 2: Oh shit, okay, yeah.
- 10:24Speaker 1: So, and I started doing that when I lived in Texas.
- 10:26Speaker 1: I just picked that shit up randomly, So you know,
- 10:29Speaker 1: I was doing that as a side hustle and selling drawings,
- 10:34Speaker 1: doing commissions on the side, and working, you know, some
- 10:36Speaker 1: part time jobs fucking asked doing like maintenance or hustling.
- 10:40Speaker 1: That's work, fucking retail.
- 10:42Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 10:43Speaker 1: So dude, at one point, I had, like I got
- 10:46Speaker 1: hired on it, like three different retail places at once.
- 10:49Speaker 1: It was like fucking bed Bath and Beyond Cohle's and
- 10:52Speaker 1: fucking guess work.
- 10:53Speaker 2: Did you work all three at the same time or
- 10:55Speaker 2: did you just pick like a ship, which one do
- 10:56Speaker 2: I go to?
- 10:57Speaker 1: Well, I did the training for each one, and I think.
- 10:59Speaker 2: I get paid off the training, right, Yeah.
- 11:02Speaker 1: I just collected like two three fucking weeks of pay
- 11:04Speaker 1: and I just was like, all right, I'm out, Like
- 11:06Speaker 1: they were all like what the fuck? Like, Yeah, so
- 11:08Speaker 1: I did that before.
- 11:09Speaker 2: Yeah, call centers. I used to do that, call centers.
- 11:11Speaker 2: I get the call center job and just do the
- 11:13Speaker 2: training and.
- 11:14Speaker 1: Quick, yeah, it was just onto the next one. It
- 11:15Speaker 1: was pretty easy for me to get hired. I would
- 11:17Speaker 1: I would apply to like thirty fucking places at once
- 11:20Speaker 1: get Pick, which you know, all backs, and then I
- 11:23Speaker 1: worked at Guests and Steve Madden for a cool minute
- 11:26Speaker 1: and then and then left that ship too. So yeah,
- 11:29Speaker 1: you know, I was I was doing a bunch of
- 11:30Speaker 1: side hustles just to pay rent and to support my
- 11:35Speaker 1: my you know, and like my painting journey, because that
- 11:37Speaker 1: shit ain't cheap. You know, can.
- 11:39Speaker 2: Imagine supplies, paint brushes, canvases are not canvases are what
- 11:44Speaker 2: like twenty five bucks?
- 11:45Speaker 1: Oh no, dude, they go for yeah, I mean if
- 11:47Speaker 1: you're buying small canvases. But my yeah, my large canvases
- 11:51Speaker 1: are like two hundred bucks, especially when it's quality stuff.
- 11:53Speaker 2: And right, I.
- 11:54Speaker 1: Paint on wood panels, so it's a little more.
- 11:56Speaker 2: Because like you could probably get like a cheap canvas
- 11:59Speaker 2: at Michael's and.
- 12:00Speaker 1: Yeah, but you could tell the difference. In art, it's
- 12:03Speaker 1: important to use good ship. Like I'm always impressed by
- 12:08Speaker 1: people trying to make good art with cheap equipment, you know,
- 12:11Speaker 1: cheap brushes, cheap paint, that stuff matters, you know. I
- 12:14Speaker 1: remember I was, I was using that stuff, and then
- 12:18Speaker 1: when I started buying more expensive brushes, more expensive paint.
- 12:21Speaker 2: I really noticed the difference.
- 12:23Speaker 1: Oh dude, it's like the comparison I suppose is like
- 12:28Speaker 1: microphone exactly, you know, using analog equipment versus like you
- 12:33Speaker 1: know this, doallshit and then and then having like good
- 12:37Speaker 1: like good good quality ship and then you you really
- 12:41Speaker 1: can see it in the work. So yeah, for a year,
- 12:44Speaker 1: you know, I painted every day, was using a bunch
- 12:47Speaker 1: of cheap shit, started you know, immediately selling work. It
- 12:51Speaker 1: was crazy because I had started selling paintings right away,
- 12:54Speaker 1: like way quickly.
- 12:55Speaker 2: How much were they going for your first ones?
- 12:58Speaker 1: I want to say. The first painting that I had
- 13:02Speaker 1: exhibited was a portrait of a skull with a sombrero,
- 13:07Speaker 1: and I had shown it at one of my dad's events,
- 13:10Speaker 1: a Day of the Dead events. Sold it for like
- 13:12Speaker 1: five hundred bucks, and that was like the most I
- 13:15Speaker 1: had ever sold a piece for in a gallery setting.
- 13:19Speaker 2: Because before you're doing the pencil stuff.
- 13:20Speaker 1: I was doing pencil stuff that was going for you know,
- 13:22Speaker 1: two three hundred dollars and it was easy, it was
- 13:26Speaker 1: it was easy to move those because they were so affordable.
- 13:29Speaker 1: But then the paintings completely switched it up for me
- 13:32Speaker 1: because you know, it was it was quickly seeing how
- 13:35Speaker 1: they were going. And within art, you know, it's people
- 13:39Speaker 1: always ask me like, how do you a praise a work?
- 13:42Speaker 1: How do you determine what work costs? I mean, I've
- 13:45Speaker 1: been exhibiting my work since I was ten, so you know,
- 13:48Speaker 1: I built my work up to what it is now
- 13:51Speaker 1: at a very like early short priced stage. Yeah, where
- 13:56Speaker 1: my work was going for you know, one hundred, two hundred,
- 13:58Speaker 1: and every year it just goes up.
- 14:00Speaker 2: Well, it's also just like whatever someone's willing to pay,
- 14:02Speaker 2: right that. Sometimes you see a piece of art.
- 14:05Speaker 1: And you're like, I mean, yeah, at the end of
- 14:08Speaker 1: the day, art is really worth nothing, but to some
- 14:11Speaker 1: people it's worth everything. So yeah, it's worth what anybody's
- 14:15Speaker 1: willing to pay. But I'm talking about you know, in
- 14:18Speaker 1: in the gallery setting on a secondary market. You know,
- 14:21Speaker 1: someone buys your work and resells it.
- 14:22Speaker 2: So do people do that a lot with your stuff?
- 14:24Speaker 2: They'll buy and flip.
- 14:25Speaker 1: Yeah, mostly with the prince, not not so with your
- 14:29Speaker 1: Well you.
- 14:29Speaker 2: Know what, I see that too, because those Griselda fans,
- 14:32Speaker 2: they love buying and flipping ship Man.
- 14:34Speaker 1: The Prey for Paris Joint that I did. You know
- 14:37Speaker 1: that print went for one hundred bucks and it's sunny
- 14:39Speaker 1: eBay for like three grandjeesu.
- 14:41Speaker 2: So you know, it's how many prints did you do? Well?
- 14:45Speaker 1: Whenever I do ship with Wes, it's you know, it's
- 14:48Speaker 1: really up to him. I mean, well, it's it's really
- 14:52Speaker 1: his choice. I have very say, like very little say
- 14:56Speaker 1: in what he does. You know, at the first you
- 15:00Speaker 1: ship that we did together, it was it was an
- 15:02Speaker 1: addition of one hundred and then he quickly started doing
- 15:04Speaker 1: editions of one eighty seven makes sense on brand, so
- 15:08Speaker 1: you know, and I think it only recently he started
- 15:11Speaker 1: doing like two hundred and fifty, you know with the
- 15:14Speaker 1: with the Virgil stuff and the roll out with and
- 15:16Speaker 1: then you pray for me. But yeah, I mean that
- 15:19Speaker 1: that that piece was extremely popular and you know it's
- 15:23Speaker 1: going for you know, I mean so much more than
- 15:28Speaker 1: what it actually.
- 15:29Speaker 2: I wondered like when you and like because obviously Westside
- 15:32Speaker 2: Guns got so much to do with like giving you exposure. Yeah,
- 15:36Speaker 2: do you like charge him if he wants a piece? Yeah?
- 15:41Speaker 1: For Thomas bro pays.
- 15:43Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, you know, I don't know.
- 15:45Speaker 1: Yeah, big broke. He pays.
- 15:48Speaker 2: You know.
- 15:49Speaker 1: I think my relationship with Wes Is is a unique one.
- 15:54Speaker 1: And I think after the first year, you know, we
- 15:59Speaker 1: we did stuff to other. I think it quickly became
- 16:02Speaker 1: more family base than anything. It became tighter than I
- 16:07Speaker 1: had expected. And you know, whenever we do shit, it's
- 16:10Speaker 1: I don't we don't even talk numbers, you know. He
- 16:12Speaker 1: He'll text me, you know, and I ney this by yesterday.
- 16:15Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, I'm on it, and the numbers
- 16:17Speaker 1: will be you know, we'll figure out the numbers later.
- 16:20Speaker 1: With everybody, with anybody else's it's different, you know what
- 16:22Speaker 1: I'm saying, because obviously Wes's you know, my doctor Gray.
- 16:27Speaker 1: I mean, like that's my you know, he put me
- 16:29Speaker 1: on for sure. And I'll always keep that relationship like
- 16:33Speaker 1: that because I feel like I owe it to him
- 16:36Speaker 1: to just you know, I mean, whatever he needs, he
- 16:39Speaker 1: knows I'm there. So but yeah, I mean, it's crazy
- 16:42Speaker 1: how that that relationship even you know, came about. Like
- 16:45Speaker 1: I said, after that first year of painting, I did
- 16:47Speaker 1: that portrait of Park third, I think cracked off. And
- 16:51Speaker 1: then some of my homeboys who grew up with Diddy's
- 16:54Speaker 1: kids hit me up and they're like, yo, you should
- 16:56Speaker 1: do a portrait of Biggie and we'll move it to Puff.
- 16:58Speaker 1: So I did a portrait of big I was at
- 17:01Speaker 1: the time, I was living in Vegas. I fucking drove
- 17:03Speaker 1: four hours just to drop that shit off in Homby
- 17:05Speaker 1: Hills at Diddy's crib. So that was, you know, a
- 17:10Speaker 1: stamp of approval.
- 17:12Speaker 2: So Diddy bought the Biggie painting.
- 17:15Speaker 1: It's a little trickier than that, you know, I'm saying.
- 17:17Speaker 1: I actually never even met Diddy. A lot of people
- 17:19Speaker 1: think it was like that.
- 17:20Speaker 2: Is it hung up at his house somewhere?
- 17:22Speaker 1: Yeah, No, for sure, it's it's it's hung in his
- 17:24Speaker 1: studio in Hombie Hills. What the crazy shit is that?
- 17:28Speaker 1: You know? I never met Diddy, but he has posted
- 17:32Speaker 1: that fucking painting so many times. I mean that that
- 17:34Speaker 1: painting is hung in the recording studio in his house.
- 17:37Speaker 1: A lot of people have recorded in there.
- 17:39Speaker 2: So many people in the background.
- 17:41Speaker 1: So many people have posted my painting on Instagram. I
- 17:44Speaker 1: remember Joey Badass was like raving about it. You know,
- 17:49Speaker 1: this one was kind of this kind of sentimental. But
- 17:52Speaker 1: when Nipsey was working on Victory Lap. There's a picture
- 17:55Speaker 1: he posted with him and Puffs side by side and
- 17:57Speaker 1: you see my Biggie portrait in the background, and I
- 18:00Speaker 1: was like, damn. I was like, I felt like my
- 18:02Speaker 1: spirit was there a little bit during that process. And
- 18:06Speaker 1: I never got to meet dude, and I would have
- 18:07Speaker 1: loved to because you know that was one of my Well.
- 18:10Speaker 2: That's going to be one of your paintings. Eventually you
- 18:11Speaker 2: got to do the nip one man.
- 18:13Speaker 1: Oh well, I did a Nipsey portrait a while back
- 18:16Speaker 1: for the Real Street Fest.
- 18:18Speaker 2: Oh I was posting that, Yeah, I was.
- 18:21Speaker 1: I it was it was like I had a friend
- 18:25Speaker 1: who knew the people over at A was it fifteen
- 18:27Speaker 1: hundred sound? Is that what it is or fifteen hundred
- 18:30Speaker 1: sound Academy?
- 18:30Speaker 2: Oh yeah, fifteen dred nothing guys.
- 18:32Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and it's like George Pine. Yeah yeah. So
- 18:35Speaker 1: they had a thing going on with like Fender, and
- 18:38Speaker 1: I had did a portrait nip to put on display
- 18:41Speaker 1: at their booth. So I had that. That was the
- 18:44Speaker 1: only portrait I did of them. But you know, I'm
- 18:46Speaker 1: not really big into doing like dead celebrities. I really
- 18:52Speaker 1: only do that shit if it's if it at the
- 18:55Speaker 1: opportunity makes sense if someone's commissioning it, I won't just
- 18:59Speaker 1: I did that already. I did that so much early
- 19:02Speaker 1: on that I realized I didn't want to base my
- 19:04Speaker 1: identity off of painting dead celebrities. It's not I'm not.
- 19:07Speaker 2: You've got you've done like shit, Josh Allen.
- 19:10Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that's that's on West. You know, that's
- 19:12Speaker 1: like Wes's curation and what he wants. But I won't
- 19:16Speaker 1: do that consciously. I've only done it a couple of times,
- 19:18Speaker 1: and and if I do it, that's because it really
- 19:21Speaker 1: means a lot to me to do it. You know,
- 19:22Speaker 1: I wanted to build my career off of my own ship.
- 19:25Speaker 1: I wanted to build my my art career off of
- 19:29Speaker 1: an original style of work versus being you know that
- 19:34Speaker 1: dude just paints. It's so easy because it happens a
- 19:36Speaker 1: lot of celebrities. Do you see that shit all the time.
- 19:38Speaker 1: I'm not. I think a lot of people misconstrued me
- 19:41Speaker 1: with other artists, like I'm not an IG artist, So
- 19:44Speaker 1: if IG disappeared, I'm still going to be Like you know, it's.
- 19:48Speaker 2: Kind of like modeling, right, It's like you could be
- 19:50Speaker 2: an Instagram model, but could you like do print work?
- 19:53Speaker 1: Yeah?
- 19:53Speaker 2: No, do you have an agent exactly? You know what
- 19:55Speaker 2: I'm saying, It's different.
- 19:55Speaker 1: There's a lot of motherfuckers that don't exist in that world,
- 19:59Speaker 1: but they exist on the social media platform. So if
- 20:03Speaker 1: that shit disappears, it's like a lot of these TikTokers.
- 20:05Speaker 1: You know, a lot of these TikTok motherfuckers had to
- 20:07Speaker 1: find a path because when TikTok started to fall off,
- 20:11Speaker 1: you know, they had to do something. So either they
- 20:14Speaker 1: got into music, they got it to acting definitely started
- 20:16Speaker 1: doing a bunch of that.
- 20:17Speaker 2: I was gonna say, have you had anybody who just
- 20:19Speaker 2: straight stolen your style?
- 20:21Speaker 1: I mean all the time? Yeah, that shit happens weekly,
- 20:24Speaker 1: you know what I mean, people tag me and shit
- 20:26Speaker 1: that people will do this like third Eye ship or
- 20:29Speaker 1: smiley faced shit. You know. I remember Fashion Nova had
- 20:32Speaker 1: dropped the whole line and they dropped some third ie
- 20:34Speaker 1: smiley shit, and I tried to hit them up. I
- 20:38Speaker 1: was actually gonna go over one of their billboards they
- 20:40Speaker 1: had down in Hollywood. I was gonna fucking blast that shit.
- 20:43Speaker 1: But I got a fear of heights, so I'm not
- 20:45Speaker 1: doing that shit. That shit was way too high I
- 20:47Speaker 1: actually went there like twice. It's on the second time,
- 20:49Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I'm gonna go up there.
- 20:50Speaker 1: But I was like the billboard was right above like
- 20:54Speaker 1: a fence that had the fucking like the spikes and shit. Yeah,
- 20:57Speaker 1: like if I fall backwards, yeah, I'm like, I'm not
- 20:59Speaker 1: risking this ship destination. Yeah, I'd rather hit like one
- 21:02Speaker 1: of the Homeboys to go hit this show.
- 21:04Speaker 2: They steal so much, Yeah, They'm sheene like all those companies, dude.
- 21:09Speaker 2: They steal so much from like small like small artists,
- 21:12Speaker 2: small creators, like small clothing lines. Even they'll steal a
- 21:16Speaker 2: fucking clothing line design.
- 21:17Speaker 1: There's no way they didn't see my ship, dude. It
- 21:20Speaker 1: was a third eye smiley face and where else are
- 21:22Speaker 1: you going to see that shit with like with like
- 21:24Speaker 1: like drippy like exactly my Red Trips. Yeah, everything was crazy.
- 21:27Speaker 1: You know. It was like everybody was tagging me in it.
- 21:29Speaker 1: I was like, these motherfuckers, you know what I'm saying,
- 21:31Speaker 1: like like it's cool. I've had a lot of people,
- 21:34Speaker 1: you know, try to bite this ship and maybe maybe
- 21:37Speaker 1: you know, it's possible that motherfuckers just got the same idea.
- 21:40Speaker 1: It's possible that they you know.
- 21:42Speaker 2: You know what it is too, is your work so
- 21:45Speaker 2: popular people will see it and not even care to see, like,
- 21:48Speaker 2: oh what is this? What is this from? They just
- 21:50Speaker 2: see it and then they're like, oh, we're just gonna
- 21:51Speaker 2: replicate this, yea without they of.
- 21:53Speaker 1: You motherfuckers will get inspired and they'll run and through
- 21:56Speaker 1: their own ship. I mean, I would have loved to
- 21:57Speaker 1: even just you know, had the conversation of doing a
- 22:00Speaker 1: legit collapse. It was like, bro, we can make so
- 22:02Speaker 1: much more by just doing this legitimately, you know what
- 22:04Speaker 1: I mean. But yeah, people bite the shit all the time.
- 22:07Speaker 1: And it's funny when I when when Wes hit me up,
- 22:11Speaker 1: you know, he he immediately responded to the third eye
- 22:15Speaker 1: shit that was what he liked, and he goes, dude's
- 22:19Speaker 1: the craziest shit. Because I had read I had discovered
- 22:24Speaker 1: who Wes and Conway was in an article about them
- 22:27Speaker 1: shot signing the Shady And at the time, you know,
- 22:29Speaker 1: I was following a lot of hip hop pages, you know,
- 22:31Speaker 1: kind of trying to stay up to date with what
- 22:33Speaker 1: was going on, because I started putting a lot of
- 22:37Speaker 1: music out in like twenty eighteen, and you know, writing
- 22:40Speaker 1: a lot, and so I was trying to stay up
- 22:42Speaker 1: to date and I saw that article and I looked
- 22:45Speaker 1: into their musics, like, damn, these motherfuckers are dope. I
- 22:48Speaker 1: had no idea who they were. I was like, this
- 22:50Speaker 1: dude's obviously like I probably had the same impression as
- 22:53Speaker 1: everybody else right away. It spoke Wu tang, but I
- 22:55Speaker 1: was like, I thought these dudes were like some old
- 22:57Speaker 1: heads that I just never heard of, right, And then
- 23:01Speaker 1: fast forward that was like in June, June or July
- 23:03Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. Fast forward to September. I get a DM
- 23:07Speaker 1: from West because Hip Hop DX posted my Tupac painting.
- 23:10Speaker 1: So he was like, yo, dude, He's like, I fuck
- 23:13Speaker 1: with your shit. He was like, you know, I just
- 23:15Speaker 1: bought a new crib. I want to acquire some work.
- 23:17Speaker 1: He asked what I had, you know, nothing really spoke
- 23:20Speaker 1: to him at the time, and he was like, let
- 23:21Speaker 1: me think about it. And then he hits me back
- 23:23Speaker 1: up like a month or two later, He's like, I'm
- 23:24Speaker 1: about to drop an album at the top of twenty eighteen,
- 23:28Speaker 1: and I want you to do the cover. And I
- 23:29Speaker 1: was like, all right, I bet like we could do that.
- 23:31Speaker 1: And it was the first time I had ever been,
- 23:32Speaker 1: you know, offered to do like an album cover, like
- 23:36Speaker 1: something legit h and I was like, what do you
- 23:38Speaker 1: have in mind? And he goes, I want to do
- 23:40Speaker 1: a portrait of Crisp ban Wan with the Third Eye.
- 23:42Speaker 1: And I was like, oh shit, it's like, all right,
- 23:44Speaker 1: we can run that. So and I was already building
- 23:49Speaker 1: a body of work for a show that year. So
- 23:52Speaker 1: when I did that cover and it came out, it
- 23:54Speaker 1: just elevated everything, the whole body of work that I
- 23:57Speaker 1: was doing. Yeah, Hype Beat picked it up and they
- 23:59Speaker 1: were talking about it. That was it was a crazy
- 24:01Speaker 1: co sign And but nobody really at the time. I
- 24:05Speaker 1: wasn't like I didn't have that big of an IG following.
- 24:08Speaker 1: I actually I didn't have IG five. I probably had
- 24:10Speaker 1: like ten thousand followers, so very few. Right, So when
- 24:15Speaker 1: they saw my Third Eye series, a lot of people
- 24:18Speaker 1: thought I was biting Wes. They just thought that I
- 24:21Speaker 1: was there.
- 24:22Speaker 2: I realized that you're yeah.
- 24:23Speaker 1: Like I would get a lot of people in my
- 24:25Speaker 1: comments being like, damn, this shit looks like west Side
- 24:27Speaker 1: Gunship or this motherfucker's And I'm like, and I just like,
- 24:31Speaker 1: at the beginning, I would I have to like explain
- 24:32Speaker 1: to people, and then I just started now and when
- 24:34Speaker 1: it happened, it still happens. When it happens, I'm just like, man,
- 24:37Speaker 1: shit's funny because I'm like, these motherfuckers were stupid. They
- 24:40Speaker 1: just don't know. But that but that's why it's like,
- 24:42Speaker 1: you know, my ig is fucking like from top to bottom,
- 24:45Speaker 1: it's just build with West side of ship. So like,
- 24:47Speaker 1: how do you not know? You know, like it's been
- 24:49Speaker 1: six years now, like how do you how are you
- 24:52Speaker 1: not caught up? But yeah, it's funny. So you know,
- 24:55Speaker 1: a lot of people because West put that ship out,
- 24:58Speaker 1: a lot of people started copying the smile, especially the
- 25:01Speaker 1: smiley face thing. You know, I'll see a lot of
- 25:03Speaker 1: people doing portraits of West with like a third eye,
- 25:05Speaker 1: with like smiley faces and shit in the background. And
- 25:08Speaker 1: it wasn't like a conscious thing like I'm gonna paint
- 25:10Speaker 1: third eyes and smiley faces and that's what's gonna that's
- 25:12Speaker 1: what's gonna hit. It just it just happened, you know,
- 25:15Speaker 1: and people responded to it really well.
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- 28:55Speaker 2: say for you, like I know that you know, you
- 29:00Speaker 2: just did a commission piece for Pas Fat the Fat
- 29:03Speaker 2: Joke piece. Like if somebody hit you, you don't have
- 29:08Speaker 2: to give us your business, but like, like, what's the
- 29:11Speaker 2: conversation start at if they want to commission a piece
- 29:14Speaker 2: with you? Well, I mean yeah, I just say some
- 29:17Speaker 2: dude off the street who just wants you to paint.
- 29:19Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'll put you on game. I mean,
- 29:21Speaker 1: you know, I get hit up.
- 29:22Speaker 2: The art game is just so interesting to me because
- 29:24Speaker 2: you hear like there's these apps. You can buy pieces
- 29:26Speaker 2: of art, you can buy shares of art, there's the
- 29:28Speaker 2: gallery game. There's so many like it's just like it's
- 29:31Speaker 2: kind of like the music game. There's just so many
- 29:33Speaker 2: different Yeah.
- 29:34Speaker 1: I think during twenty twenty, though, I kind of things change.
- 29:40Speaker 1: I'm telling you, like a lot of shit changed for
- 29:41Speaker 1: me in twenty twenty. There was a lot of things
- 29:43Speaker 1: that happened that elevated everything that I was doing, and
- 29:46Speaker 1: I kind of beat the gallery system, especially the galleries
- 29:49Speaker 1: that I was working with at the time. Up until
- 29:53Speaker 1: you know, then, I had never had representation. I had
- 29:55Speaker 1: exhibited my work in tons of galleries, in some museums,
- 29:59Speaker 1: but you know, I kind of, you know, I kind
- 30:03Speaker 1: of skipped a lot of steps during that time because
- 30:06Speaker 1: when Pray for Paris came out I had a lot
- 30:08Speaker 1: of attention having done the alternate cover that Virgil did,
- 30:13Speaker 1: so a lot of people, you know, had their eyes
- 30:16Speaker 1: on me, and I sold a lot of work by myself.
- 30:19Speaker 1: You know, I never had an art dealer, never had
- 30:21Speaker 1: an advisor or any type of manager representative. So, you know,
- 30:25Speaker 1: my my process was very like like it became on
- 30:30Speaker 1: like on some trapping shit.
- 30:31Speaker 2: You know.
- 30:31Speaker 1: That's how like a lot of the shit, That's what
- 30:34Speaker 1: it felt like like. I felt like the last four
- 30:36Speaker 1: or five years I've been trapping my shit, just straight
- 30:39Speaker 1: straight up, like there's no the formula is so simple,
- 30:42Speaker 1: Like I don't even know how to explain it to
- 30:44Speaker 1: people in simpler terms. You know, people think that there's
- 30:48Speaker 1: some sort of crazy formula and I'm like, nah, dude,
- 30:50Speaker 1: it just sort of happened where it was pretty it's organic.
- 30:54Speaker 2: You know.
- 30:54Speaker 1: We hit me when Wes hit me up. It was
- 30:56Speaker 1: as simple as yo, dude, I want to work with you.
- 30:58Speaker 1: And I was a fan of him. I was like, yeah,
- 31:00Speaker 1: let's do it. You know. There was no contract, there
- 31:03Speaker 1: was no business meeting. It was like what you do,
- 31:05Speaker 1: what do you want to run? You know, it sent
- 31:07Speaker 1: me some some images. I was like, all right, let's
- 31:09Speaker 1: run this one. We did it and gave them a
- 31:11Speaker 1: price and that was it. And then and that's just
- 31:13Speaker 1: it's super straightforward, you know. Like so I don't do
- 31:18Speaker 1: projects for just anybody. Not anybody could just hit not no.
- 31:22Speaker 1: Like in the beginning, maybe, but I quickly started to
- 31:26Speaker 1: realize that, you know, I had the opportunity to say
- 31:30Speaker 1: no to a lot of shit, you know, in the beginning, because.
- 31:32Speaker 2: What is like if you say yes to something, what
- 31:35Speaker 2: is the time that it takes to put one of
- 31:37Speaker 2: your paintings together.
- 31:39Speaker 1: It just depends on the project. It depends on you know,
- 31:42Speaker 1: what I got going on at the time. If I'm
- 31:43Speaker 1: already working on a bunch of shit.
- 31:45Speaker 2: I'm saying like in terms of just like hours man hours. Yeah,
- 31:48Speaker 2: actual painting.
- 31:49Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it depends on how big the pieces,
- 31:51Speaker 1: how much detail there is. I mean I can bust
- 31:53Speaker 1: out of painting pretty quickly if I really put everything
- 31:55Speaker 1: as well fat Joe is it's a five by five painting,
- 32:02Speaker 1: five feet by five feet. I think I did that
- 32:04Speaker 1: shit in like like thirty days, like a month's time,
- 32:08Speaker 1: but I was taking breaks. There was stuff that was
- 32:11Speaker 1: happening in between. But you know, it's like when West
- 32:13Speaker 1: hits me up and he's like, yo, I need this
- 32:16Speaker 1: ship by yesterday. I'm like on a three day timeline,
- 32:20Speaker 1: Like I gotta go tweak out and just finish, dude,
- 32:23Speaker 1: straight twelve hour days, just back to back, non stop. Yeah,
- 32:26Speaker 1: Like when I did when I did the Jordan and
- 32:31Speaker 1: Virgil portrait, I did those both in like three days,
- 32:33Speaker 1: like collectively. Yeah, Like Virgil took me like one day
- 32:36Speaker 1: and then Jordan took me two days. But that's that's
- 32:39Speaker 1: because I had to I don't think it really matters
- 32:41Speaker 1: how fast or long it takes for someone to create something.
- 32:46Speaker 1: I could work very quickly just because I know. Look,
- 32:49Speaker 1: once I start, I'm locked in. It's like it's like
- 32:51Speaker 1: a rapper. It's like, you know, when they jump into
- 32:53Speaker 1: a studio, it's like they already got the material laid out.
- 32:56Speaker 1: Just give him a fucking beat, and once they're in
- 32:58Speaker 1: there in you know what I mean, it's not like
- 33:00Speaker 1: you know, and then you got some of these artists
- 33:02Speaker 1: who take, you know, a year or two years to
- 33:04Speaker 1: make a project because they're they're like taking their time,
- 33:07Speaker 1: they're reminiscing on it. With me, I could just jump
- 33:09Speaker 1: into it. I'm already especially when West hits me up,
- 33:11Speaker 1: because when West hits me up, it's like it's synergy,
- 33:14Speaker 1: like that energy. Just I get locked into it, and
- 33:16Speaker 1: then I'm already. I'm already on. I'm already on it.
- 33:18Speaker 1: You know, there's no there's nothing that's gonna slow me
- 33:23Speaker 1: down when I'm working on his projects. But yeah, I don't,
- 33:27Speaker 1: you know, I don't take on just any projects. I
- 33:29Speaker 1: quickly started to say no to a lot of shit.
- 33:32Speaker 1: You know, I keep the I keep the the the
- 33:37Speaker 1: group of people that collect my ship is very tight.
- 33:41Speaker 1: You know, there is a wait list. You know, there
- 33:43Speaker 1: is a process, a sort of an evaluation process to
- 33:47Speaker 1: get my ship. Now you know what I mean.
- 33:49Speaker 2: I mean, that's a good place to be in.
- 33:51Speaker 1: Yeah it is, but you know it all and I
- 33:54Speaker 1: get it, you know, I know everybody wants it. But
- 33:56Speaker 1: that's why I started. You know, doing the prints allows
- 33:59Speaker 1: people to acquire of my work on a scale that's
- 34:03Speaker 1: you know, it's like, now everybody's going to afford a
- 34:05Speaker 1: thirty forty thousand dollars painting, but you know, the prince.
- 34:08Speaker 1: It allows the work to be accessible for everybody. And
- 34:11Speaker 1: that's that was you know, important for me to establish
- 34:14Speaker 1: because I want everybody to have my shit. Yeah, you
- 34:17Speaker 1: know what I mean. But the the the original shit,
- 34:20Speaker 1: it's like that's you know, that's reserved for you got
- 34:24Speaker 1: to come. It's like you got to come.
- 34:25Speaker 2: Correct.
- 34:26Speaker 1: And I get a lot of people that'll that will
- 34:27Speaker 1: hit me up and they'll they'll assume that the work
- 34:29Speaker 1: is I mean, I really don't care what the price
- 34:32Speaker 1: of shit goes for. But you know, it took me
- 34:35Speaker 1: a long time to get to where I'm at, and
- 34:38Speaker 1: you know, it's hard to explain that to everybody, and
- 34:41Speaker 1: then when people hit me up and they're like, oh,
- 34:42Speaker 1: what's your we're going for and I'll give them a
- 34:44Speaker 1: number and they're like, damn, that shit's crazy, Like I thought,
- 34:47Speaker 1: you know, I got to wait a while. And I'm like, well,
- 34:49Speaker 1: you know you it's cool that you didn't know. It's fine,
- 34:52Speaker 1: but I'm like, you know, what do you expect? Like
- 34:54Speaker 1: you're hitting me up because you see that West fucks
- 34:57Speaker 1: with me, PS fucks with me. I'm doing shit for
- 35:00Speaker 1: fucking Benny. I'm doing this shit for all these people
- 35:02Speaker 1: and doing collabs with SO and so. I'm like, come on,
- 35:04Speaker 1: what do you expect? Like, don't you know what I mean?
- 35:06Speaker 1: That's why I got certain things pinned on my page,
- 35:08Speaker 1: so motherfuckers know, like, you're not going to go to
- 35:11Speaker 1: so and so, you know, super established and just.
- 35:14Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not gonna go to like ask Timbaland for
- 35:16Speaker 2: a beating and be surprised when he tries to hit
- 35:17Speaker 2: chips out of head.
- 35:18Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm like I wouldn't even you know, so,
- 35:20Speaker 1: but it takes people to ask so they know, so
- 35:23Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But that's why I'm like,
- 35:25Speaker 1: you know that I don't know people. I guess they
- 35:27Speaker 1: don't really do their research. I mean, you could find
- 35:29Speaker 1: the price of shit. Unlike Artsy. You know, my ship's there.
- 35:32Speaker 1: You know what's Artsy is that kind of like Artsy
- 35:33Speaker 1: is a marketplace for to sell art, you know, I
- 35:36Speaker 1: gotta I got a bunch of artists there through some
- 35:38Speaker 1: of my dealers that sell my stuff. So you know,
- 35:41Speaker 1: there's prices there. I mean, and you know, it's the
- 35:44Speaker 1: ship that I do with Wes. It's not it's not
- 35:47Speaker 1: a mystery, you know what I mean. I mean, the
- 35:49Speaker 1: prices are there. He talks about it, you know. But
- 35:51Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I really don't think
- 35:53Speaker 1: the price of shit matters. That's just what it is.
- 35:55Speaker 1: But you know, I think it's what matters. More is
- 35:58Speaker 1: like the projects that i'm you know, and I try
- 36:00Speaker 1: to keep it very curated. Again, I'm not gonna just
- 36:03Speaker 1: do anything. I've had people come at me with, you know,
- 36:06Speaker 1: a bag and they're like, yo, I want you to
- 36:07Speaker 1: do an album cover. I'm like, I don't even know
- 36:10Speaker 1: your music like that. I don't even fuck with you know,
- 36:12Speaker 1: with I don't know anything about you. So I'm like,
- 36:14Speaker 1: I'm not going to just do it because you're waving
- 36:16Speaker 1: a bag in my face, like I don't need the
- 36:18Speaker 1: money like that. You know, I'm more, I'm more.
- 36:22Speaker 2: What makes sense.
- 36:22Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm concerned about what exactly like does it does
- 36:25Speaker 1: it align with what I'm doing? And you know, because
- 36:27Speaker 1: some people will hit me up and they'll be like, oh,
- 36:29Speaker 1: we want you to do some like Alec Monopoly type ship.
- 36:31Speaker 1: I'm like, well, then go get a fucking Alec.
- 36:33Speaker 2: And that ship. I mean, shut out to that guy
- 36:35Speaker 2: who's obviously really successful, but that that ship is so
- 36:39Speaker 2: like what is that like? Yeah, I mean to me, like,
- 36:42Speaker 2: you know, that ship is very like if you go
- 36:45Speaker 2: to a scammer's house, you might see some fake Alec
- 36:47Speaker 2: monopoly ship.
- 36:48Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. You know it's like you're not gonna
- 36:51Speaker 1: go different.
- 36:52Speaker 2: It's just different.
- 36:52Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not gonna fucking you know, no one's gonna
- 36:55Speaker 1: ask Timbaland to make them a fucking you know, murder
- 36:58Speaker 1: beats type saying different like for some ship. So yeah,
- 37:02Speaker 1: you know I get a lot of that too, something
- 37:05Speaker 1: like yeah, I get that all the time, or they'll
- 37:08Speaker 1: I'll get a lot of like you know, if sometimes
- 37:11Speaker 1: I will humor the situation you know, I'll always hear
- 37:14Speaker 1: people out and see what they want, just because I
- 37:17Speaker 1: just I don't know, I like, I just that's just
- 37:19Speaker 1: me personally. I always hear people out. And sometimes, you know,
- 37:22Speaker 1: if the opportunity is something that pieced my interest or
- 37:25Speaker 1: I believe in it, then you know, I'll consider it.
- 37:28Speaker 1: But a lot of times I'll get some goofy ass
- 37:30Speaker 1: like you know, idea that people want to do, and
- 37:33Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I'm not doing that, like I'm not
- 37:35Speaker 1: doing that ship, or like people will want me to
- 37:37Speaker 1: do some shit like like I'm not going to say
- 37:41Speaker 1: no names, but because I don't want to sound like
- 37:43Speaker 1: I'm hating or clowning. But I had a home homeboy
- 37:45Speaker 1: hit me up to do a project and I'm a fan,
- 37:50Speaker 1: and he was like, I want to do it. I
- 37:52Speaker 1: want to just for his house, you know, I want
- 37:53Speaker 1: to commission a piece. And he had this crazy ass
- 37:56Speaker 1: like idea about doing a portrait of him on like
- 37:58Speaker 1: some like Viking battle shit. I was like, dude, I
- 38:00Speaker 1: don't paint shit like that, Like you know what I'm saying,
- 38:03Speaker 1: You're like asking me to paint like Frank Frizzetta. I
- 38:05Speaker 1: don't paint like that. Motherfucker. Like I'm you see my work,
- 38:08Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So, like, if you got
- 38:09Speaker 1: something that falls into what I do, then you know,
- 38:12Speaker 1: then I can do it. But you're asking me to
- 38:14Speaker 1: paint some like fantasy mystery shit that I don't like
- 38:17Speaker 1: even I'm not even on Yeah. So, and I think
- 38:21Speaker 1: people who are aren't that learned about art and how artists,
- 38:26Speaker 1: you know, operate, they just assume, oh, this dude can paint,
- 38:29Speaker 1: he can paint anything. And it's like, I'm not gonna just.
- 38:32Speaker 2: Don't want to. You also don't want to paint anything exactly.
- 38:34Speaker 1: It's like asking fucking Tarantino to do like a love
- 38:38Speaker 1: film or some shit.
- 38:38Speaker 2: To do like a rom com.
- 38:40Speaker 1: You feel me like, it's like you're not gonna ask it. Like, nah,
- 38:43Speaker 1: he's gonna make what he makes, and because he's mastered that,
- 38:46Speaker 1: you know.
- 38:46Speaker 2: So, what's been your favorite painting so far? Because you
- 38:49Speaker 2: have so many dope ones that Mike Tyson when recently
- 38:50Speaker 2: was hard. Obviously, Elizabeth Taylor one's probably my favorite. I
- 38:53Speaker 2: got that on a hoodie. That shit's clean.
- 38:54Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think it's really hard to I
- 38:59Speaker 1: have a a deep relationship with all the work that
- 39:02Speaker 1: I've ever created. I think, you know, Tupac has a
- 39:05Speaker 1: special place in my heart because of what it's done
- 39:08Speaker 1: for me. I think the my Mona Lisa Master copy
- 39:13Speaker 1: that I did, you know, was a big pivoting moment
- 39:16Speaker 1: for me because I grew up studying Italian Renaissance. I
- 39:19Speaker 1: grew up studying the Baroque period, Neoclassicism and all that shit.
- 39:23Speaker 1: So Da Vinci was someone that I that's like my
- 39:27Speaker 1: all time favorite, That's like my Jesus Christ. You know,
- 39:29Speaker 1: I prayed Da Vinci when I painted. So when I
- 39:31Speaker 1: did that Mona Lisa Master copy, that was like a
- 39:35Speaker 1: challenge for me to see if can I really push
- 39:38Speaker 1: myself to paint? Am I just you know? Am I
- 39:41Speaker 1: lying of myself? Right? Is this something that I can
- 39:43Speaker 1: actually do? When I got there, I was like, I
- 39:46Speaker 1: guess I can paint, you know, pretty good fucking good.
- 39:48Speaker 1: So it was like, you know, it's for me. So
- 39:50Speaker 1: then I started retracting my steps and getting more loose
- 39:53Speaker 1: with it. It was kind of like a Picasso thing.
- 39:55Speaker 1: I'm not saying on Picasso, but you know, by the
- 39:57Speaker 1: time Pacasto was fourteen, he was able to paint like Rembrandt,
- 40:00Speaker 1: and then it took him a lifetime to fucking you know,
- 40:02Speaker 1: find that style and it wasn't up until he developed
- 40:06Speaker 1: cubism to what it is now. That took you know,
- 40:10Speaker 1: gave him his voice. And I think that, you know,
- 40:13Speaker 1: learning the foundation of portraiture and figurative art and realism
- 40:17Speaker 1: gave me the leisure to be able to go in
- 40:21Speaker 1: the direction that I've gone and get so loose with
- 40:25Speaker 1: my my breaststroke. You know, a lot of people, a
- 40:28Speaker 1: lot of my aspiring artists homies, will ask me, you know,
- 40:30Speaker 1: how do how did I find that you know, that
- 40:34Speaker 1: stroke where I was able to get so loose and
- 40:37Speaker 1: make it work Because a lot of people think that,
- 40:39Speaker 1: you know, just because you can paint or draw real
- 40:41Speaker 1: that's that's what's going to make you successful. It's not
- 40:44Speaker 1: the case. It's like rappers thinking just because they could
- 40:47Speaker 1: rap fucking fast that they're going to be.
- 40:50Speaker 2: Or even like just because you're like super lyrical, if
- 40:52Speaker 2: you if you are not, if you have like no
- 40:54Speaker 2: flow or you're hard to hear it.
- 40:56Speaker 1: Feel me, dude. I know there's some fucking rappers that
- 40:58Speaker 1: can spit better than ninety percent.
- 41:01Speaker 2: No, but the music's not palatable. Like you might be
- 41:03Speaker 2: able to put some cool words together, but like that
- 41:05Speaker 2: doesn't make you good at rapping, right, it's good at writing.
- 41:10Speaker 1: There's flavor, you know what I'm saying. You know, there's
- 41:12Speaker 1: their soul to it. You can't for sure. I tell
- 41:14Speaker 1: people all the time, like I'm not going to go
- 41:16Speaker 1: around claiming that I'm an artist and I'm prolific and
- 41:19Speaker 1: I'm making work that's going to be revered in five
- 41:22Speaker 1: hundred years. I don't know. Maybe not, But what I
- 41:25Speaker 1: do know is that art you can't teach that shit.
- 41:30Speaker 1: You either got it or you don't, but you have
- 41:32Speaker 1: to put in the hours to discover it, you know
- 41:34Speaker 1: what I mean, You have to find it. I think
- 41:37Speaker 1: a lot of people can make art. I think they
- 41:40Speaker 1: just have to live enough life in order to achieve
- 41:43Speaker 1: that ability, you know. And again, I've been doing this
- 41:48Speaker 1: since I was a kid, so I've had a lot
- 41:50Speaker 1: of hours sharpening my blade, but I've also lived a
- 41:54Speaker 1: lot of life in between them that gave me the
- 41:57Speaker 1: experience and storytelling to talk about. Art is storytelling. So
- 42:02Speaker 1: if you don't have enough experience, you're not gonna have
- 42:05Speaker 1: good stories to tell. You're not going to, you know,
- 42:06Speaker 1: just because you can fucking draw or paint so good,
- 42:09Speaker 1: and what are you gonna paint about? You know, you're
- 42:11Speaker 1: just gonna be another one of these I G artists
- 42:13Speaker 1: who are doing portraits of celebrities or shit that you
- 42:16Speaker 1: know is is going to sell. That's like a commercial artist.
- 42:19Speaker 1: I wouldn't consider myself a commercial artist because I paint
- 42:21Speaker 1: what I want to paint, whether I think it's going
- 42:23Speaker 1: to sell or not. There is a narrative to my work,
- 42:27Speaker 1: and fortunately, you know, if I've built a following that
- 42:31Speaker 1: understands the story and they pay attention to the stories
- 42:34Speaker 1: that I'm telling in the narrative, so they read into
- 42:36Speaker 1: that and stylistically they like the work. Yeah, but yeah,
- 42:41Speaker 1: I think I think, man, it's so hard. The first
- 42:45Speaker 1: pay for Paris painting that I did really fucking holds
- 42:48Speaker 1: a special place in my heart. You know, that really
- 42:51Speaker 1: changed everything. That smiley faced shit, like that's what really
- 42:55Speaker 1: set my whole shit off.
- 42:56Speaker 2: I think I have that. I have that on a
- 42:58Speaker 2: T shirt too.
- 42:58Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a sh that set everything off. Dude's
- 43:02Speaker 1: it's like this in twenty twenty, when that shit came out,
- 43:05Speaker 1: I sold maybe like I don't know, close to one
- 43:08Speaker 1: hundred original paintings that year. I bought my house off
- 43:12Speaker 1: of that year, and then the following year just developed
- 43:15Speaker 1: even more. And you know again, I probably sold anywhere
- 43:19Speaker 1: between two three hundred works every year since then. That's
- 43:23Speaker 1: a lot of fucking works. That's a lot of work
- 43:25Speaker 1: that doesn't even include print sales, merch sales, commissions, or
- 43:30Speaker 1: hand embellished you know prints, hand embellished prints are you
- 43:34Speaker 1: know those are I don't know if you're familiar with,
- 43:37Speaker 1: what you have is a hand inmbellished prit so that
- 43:40Speaker 1: you know, holds a little more value than just the
- 43:43Speaker 1: you know, the large edition print. If I'm doing an
- 43:45Speaker 1: addition of one hundred, I might do ten hand embellish
- 43:48Speaker 1: joints and you know, touch it with pastel or spray paint,
- 43:52Speaker 1: and those are super limited because I'll only do no
- 43:54Speaker 1: more than ten, so that, you know, including those prints
- 43:58Speaker 1: originals like yeah, the Hustle And since twenty twenty, twenty one,
- 44:03Speaker 1: twenty two, and this year has been fucking monstrous.
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- 48:02Speaker 2: back to the interview. If can you share with us
- 48:05Speaker 2: the most you've ever gotten for painting.
- 48:07Speaker 1: Well, the last supper joint, the one hundred thousand dollars painting.
- 48:11Speaker 2: That one was great.
- 48:12Speaker 1: That was from my show last year, you know, And
- 48:14Speaker 1: but I had you know that bought that. That's why
- 48:17Speaker 1: that's West Is paint. But I had spoken to West
- 48:21Speaker 1: like six months prior to doing that work, and we
- 48:23Speaker 1: already had the agreement that it was hit.
- 48:25Speaker 2: Where does he have it at? Well?
- 48:27Speaker 1: I shipped it out to Atlanta, but I think I
- 48:33Speaker 1: think he I think he got a new place, and
- 48:35Speaker 1: I think he pushed all the art out of Atlanta
- 48:38Speaker 1: and took put it somewhere else. So I'm not really
- 48:40Speaker 1: sure how big was it last I last I heard
- 48:42Speaker 1: it it was at like Urban Necessities, so oh, Vegas. Yeah,
- 48:45Speaker 1: I think they probably had it there on view some shit.
- 48:47Speaker 2: I don't know how big was that painting?
- 48:49Speaker 1: Fourteen feet fourteen feet wide? It's seven is seven feet
- 48:53Speaker 1: by fourteen feet so the dements the original so big? Yeah,
- 48:57Speaker 1: the original mural is fourteen by thirty like the original
- 49:00Speaker 1: last original last supper mural is fourteen by thirty. And
- 49:04Speaker 1: I wanted mine. Mine needed to be proportionate, so I
- 49:08Speaker 1: just cut it in half and did seven by fourteen
- 49:10Speaker 1: or seven. Technical should have been seventeen seven by fifteen,
- 49:14Speaker 1: but the you know, I had to cut it down
- 49:17Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, I had to fit in my
- 49:19Speaker 1: fucking studio.
- 49:20Speaker 2: That's massive, dude. How long did that take you?
- 49:23Speaker 1: Four days? Four days? That was the last. So you
- 49:26Speaker 1: saw the show that I did last year, the show
- 49:28Speaker 1: called the New Renaissance, So I had.
- 49:31Speaker 2: Wait, it only took you four days to do that?
- 49:33Speaker 1: Well, it was the last piece that I was working
- 49:35Speaker 1: on for the show I had painted. I had did
- 49:38Speaker 1: seventy pieces for that for that exhibit, and that was
- 49:41Speaker 1: the last one that I was working on, and I
- 49:43Speaker 1: wanted it to be the last one because I needed
- 49:47Speaker 1: to have all my focus on it. Yeah, I was
- 49:49Speaker 1: working on five paintings at once, just you know, while
- 49:53Speaker 1: one's drying, I'm working on the next one. And I
- 49:55Speaker 1: didn't want to do that with that one. That one
- 49:57Speaker 1: had to be painted at a certain pace. And yeah,
- 50:00Speaker 1: it was the same situation. It was like twelve hour days, NonStop,
- 50:03Speaker 1: boom boom boom, just smash it out.
- 50:06Speaker 2: What is like for you? Like, I feel like there's
- 50:08Speaker 2: so many talented artists, but there's you know, I've seen
- 50:13Speaker 2: like so many people who I know who paint who
- 50:15Speaker 2: are dope, but like, for whatever reason, you know, they
- 50:19Speaker 2: can't pop, you know, or create the demand for their
- 50:21Speaker 2: work for you, is there any advice? You know, you
- 50:24Speaker 2: obviously were put in a position where you had a
- 50:27Speaker 2: light shine bright on you. But for somebody who's a
- 50:29Speaker 2: struggling artist who's very talented, what would be the advice
- 50:33Speaker 2: you would give them in terms of like how to
- 50:35Speaker 2: kind of like try to their best to make a
- 50:37Speaker 2: living off of their passion. You know.
- 50:39Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's tough. You know. I feel like
- 50:44Speaker 1: a lot of it has to do with being at
- 50:46Speaker 1: the right place at the right time. Yeah, because there's
- 50:48Speaker 1: a lot of talented artists that I know, people that
- 50:50Speaker 1: I've known for years and they're still you know, in
- 50:54Speaker 1: a trying to pop off. Yeah, and I think I
- 50:58Speaker 1: think a lot of you know, this is what I
- 51:01Speaker 1: know for sure being a fine artist and having a career.
- 51:06Speaker 1: Half the battle is making good art and the other
- 51:09Speaker 1: battle is being a good networker. And like in every business,
- 51:14Speaker 1: it's not what you know, it's who you know. And
- 51:16Speaker 1: like the gallery game comes in, well, it's just you know,
- 51:20Speaker 1: what relationships do you have? Because as an artist, you know,
- 51:23Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who do make art and
- 51:27Speaker 1: a lot of people that you see on social media
- 51:29Speaker 1: they have no idea how the real art world operates.
- 51:32Speaker 1: They don't know nothing about the galleries, the art dealers.
- 51:35Speaker 2: Because like, will you have like an art dealer shop
- 51:38Speaker 2: your pieces.
- 51:39Speaker 1: I mean recently I started working with multiple dealers. I've
- 51:43Speaker 1: always had people that try to.
- 51:44Speaker 2: You know what they what do they do though, Like
- 51:46Speaker 2: are they like they have a client.
- 51:48Speaker 1: They have a client this is yeah, exactly, they have
- 51:51Speaker 1: a client tele list that you know, maybe they have
- 51:53Speaker 1: clients overseas and those clients have built a relationship with them.
- 51:58Speaker 1: And an art dealer or advisor's job is to advise
- 52:04Speaker 1: collectors what they should own. You know what I'm saying.
- 52:07Speaker 1: It's very it's very cure.
- 52:08Speaker 2: They're almost like selling it to them, like, hey, this
- 52:11Speaker 2: is you need this, Yes, it's a good investment.
- 52:14Speaker 1: There's a lot of people collect art as an investment.
- 52:19Speaker 1: I don't care for collectors like that because I'm not
- 52:22Speaker 1: trying to sell shit just for a bag, and I
- 52:25Speaker 1: don't want to see someone reselling my shit ten years
- 52:27Speaker 1: down the road. I want my work to be in
- 52:30Speaker 1: collections that are going to get picked up by a
- 52:33Speaker 1: fucking museum with the you know, collections that are going
- 52:35Speaker 1: to be alongside people that I admire, or a collection
- 52:41Speaker 1: is is really storytelling. It's like someone who collects shoes
- 52:46Speaker 1: or cars. You know, there's there's a reason to collect
- 52:51Speaker 1: all that shit. You know what I'm saying, there's a passion.
- 52:53Speaker 2: As opposed to someone who just buys shoes to flip.
- 52:55Speaker 1: Them, you feel me, or someone who you look at
- 52:58Speaker 1: a lot of people's art collecttion today, they're gonna have
- 53:01Speaker 1: you know, fucking Cause with Murakami, and they're gonna have
- 53:04Speaker 1: like a fucking you know, print by. I don't know
- 53:08Speaker 1: some you know, some random you know, contemporary commercial artists.
- 53:12Speaker 1: And I'm not I'm not downing those artists. I'm a
- 53:15Speaker 1: big fan of Murakami and Cause and Shepherd, you know
- 53:18Speaker 1: all these guys. But just a lot of people buy
- 53:22Speaker 1: ship just because of the name that's behind it. They
- 53:25Speaker 1: know what the value is. What I'm saying, like you
- 53:27Speaker 1: go to a motherfuckers like you'll go to like a
- 53:29Speaker 1: thirty year old motherfucker's house and they got everything is
- 53:32Speaker 1: just dripped and like Bape and Cause and Murror commed yeah,
- 53:36Speaker 1: And I'm like, bro, you have no knowledge of, like
- 53:39Speaker 1: you know, curating your ship, Like your ship looks like
- 53:41Speaker 1: everybody's house looks like.
- 53:43Speaker 2: Sneakerh it looks like round two.
- 53:46Speaker 1: You know, like the fuck is this so sure? I
- 53:49Speaker 1: think you know a person who's a collector because I
- 53:52Speaker 1: collect art too. I collect other people's work, and I
- 53:54Speaker 1: collect ship that you know, I I you know, obviously
- 53:58Speaker 1: have a relationship with. I look into the story of
- 54:00Speaker 1: what it means stylistically, how it you know, fits in
- 54:05Speaker 1: with everything else that I have and the relationships that
- 54:08Speaker 1: I built with those particular artists. So in my opinion,
- 54:13Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, as a collector, yeah, I
- 54:17Speaker 1: want or as an artist, I want my work to
- 54:18Speaker 1: go into collections that are well curated and they are
- 54:21Speaker 1: going to last or even be talked about, you know.
- 54:24Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Like, it's like, it's like
- 54:25Speaker 1: Jay Leno's car collection. How many times do people talk
- 54:28Speaker 1: about that shit? Sure, you know, but there's a lot
- 54:30Speaker 1: of people that own thirty forty cars, but no one
- 54:32Speaker 1: gives a fuck. It's like, you got is different people,
- 54:35Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. It's different, it's well curated. So
- 54:37Speaker 1: that's the same concept, and I feel like, you know, yeah,
- 54:41Speaker 1: so you know, art dealers, though, their job is to
- 54:45Speaker 1: you know, talk to their clientele and advise them, hey,
- 54:48Speaker 1: this is this is a market to get into. This
- 54:51Speaker 1: work fits in your collec I mean a lot of
- 54:53Speaker 1: it is you know, it's going to be cookie cutter,
- 54:56Speaker 1: and a lot of it is smoking mirrors. But you know,
- 54:59Speaker 1: you can make fun of that shit because you ever
- 55:01Speaker 1: see those like parody videos, like motherfuckers, like in the
- 55:04Speaker 1: art gallery and they're saying some dumb ass random shit
- 55:06Speaker 1: about some art. You know, like, dude, motherfuckers don't really
- 55:08Speaker 1: talk like they do talk like that. Sometimes. Yeah, it's funny,
- 55:11Speaker 1: you know, and it's silly, but that's how it works.
- 55:14Speaker 1: So I have a few people who who deal my
- 55:17Speaker 1: stuff on the side, and and I don't just let anybody,
- 55:21Speaker 1: you know, it's people who have a solid client tell brace.
- 55:24Speaker 1: It's people that are actively working. You know. I have
- 55:26Speaker 1: a dealer who has clients all over the world, and
- 55:31Speaker 1: she's she sells my work pretty often, you know, and
- 55:34Speaker 1: she has clients that I can't reach. And I mean,
- 55:38Speaker 1: for me, I've been fortunate enough to get hit by
- 55:40Speaker 1: a lot of people. Like the work that I've sold
- 55:43Speaker 1: over the last few years is people just hitting me
- 55:45Speaker 1: in the DM being like dude, I want to I
- 55:47Speaker 1: want to acquire your work. And again, in the beginning,
- 55:50Speaker 1: it was it was so brand new that I had
- 55:52Speaker 1: to say yes, to say no, right. You know, once
- 55:55Speaker 1: I got to say no, I would say it a lot,
- 55:57Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So like when I did
- 55:59Speaker 1: my show last year, you know, I had It's funny.
- 56:02Speaker 1: I had some homeboy walk in with some hot ass chick,
- 56:05Speaker 1: you know, and he was like, I work with this gallery.
- 56:07Speaker 1: I work with this gallery. How can I you know,
- 56:09Speaker 1: get into your work, blah blah. I was like, all right, well,
- 56:11Speaker 1: there's a weight list, so if you want to shoot
- 56:13Speaker 1: me an email, we can you know, evaluate and if
- 56:16Speaker 1: you get approved and we could talk about some work.
- 56:18Speaker 1: And he was like noah, but you know, like I
- 56:19Speaker 1: want to like pick up someone. I was like, now
- 56:20Speaker 1: there's a weightless on me. I'm like, I'm not gonna
- 56:22Speaker 1: let you flex in front of your girl. I was like,
- 56:24Speaker 1: there's a weightless. If you really want it, you'll hit
- 56:26Speaker 1: me up. You won't just flex in front of your chick,
- 56:28Speaker 1: because if I tell you the price, I doubt you're
- 56:30Speaker 1: gonna buy. So I'm not gonna even humor it. But yeah,
- 56:35Speaker 1: so it's you know, in the beginning, you know, I
- 56:38Speaker 1: said yes a lot, and uh yeah. You know, the
- 56:41Speaker 1: dealers are cool, you know, they get the work out there.
- 56:44Speaker 1: But again, I felt for me. It's I've been fortunate
- 56:48Speaker 1: enough to do a lot of shit on my own
- 56:50Speaker 1: and wear that hat where people could just hit me
- 56:52Speaker 1: up and be like, you know, I want to I
- 56:54Speaker 1: want to acquire something, and then and then we go
- 56:56Speaker 1: about it.
- 56:57Speaker 2: For you how because you know you just did the
- 56:59Speaker 2: j Worthy Kamaya album cover for you. How often are
- 57:03Speaker 2: you getting hit to do album covers because you just
- 57:05Speaker 2: said you said earlier that you said no, you know
- 57:07Speaker 2: to somebody.
- 57:08Speaker 1: I mean, I get I get hit up by a
- 57:10Speaker 1: lot of upcoming artists, artists that haven't like even popped off.
- 57:14Speaker 1: I get that all the time. I mean I've gotten
- 57:17Speaker 1: hit up by some pretty big people, you know. I
- 57:19Speaker 1: I mean not to name drop, but you know, over
- 57:22Speaker 1: the last year, I was talking to Meek Mill about
- 57:24Speaker 1: doing a project with him, and you know, yeah, it
- 57:26Speaker 1: would be game changing. So you know, ship like that is,
- 57:31Speaker 1: you know, it comes around, you know, peasy hit me
- 57:33Speaker 1: up on just some I'm trying to collect some art
- 57:35Speaker 1: ship crib exactly, you know what I mean. I mean,
- 57:38Speaker 1: he's a fan of West like everybody else, so everybody
- 57:41Speaker 1: wants to acquire When when Wes really paved like the
- 57:45Speaker 1: groundwork and like put a lot of rap motherfuckers onto.
- 57:48Speaker 2: Especially the period.
- 57:50Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, because you have a lot of rappers
- 57:52Speaker 1: that have been collecting art, you know, uh statues, Well yeah,
- 57:57Speaker 1: you know, Swizz Beats has a real.
- 57:58Speaker 2: Funck no Swizz Oh, there's like those. There's a few,
- 58:01Speaker 2: select few that really.
- 58:02Speaker 1: Jay Z's collection is not even comparable that he's got
- 58:05Speaker 1: fucking boscots and ship, Like his ship is blue chip
- 58:08Speaker 1: art I'm talking about. Like, yeah, I mean, Swizz Beats
- 58:11Speaker 1: work is even you know, pretty close up there. But
- 58:13Speaker 1: I mean jay Z's probably got the best collection in
- 58:16Speaker 1: the rap game as far as rappers go, Oh for sure,
- 58:19Speaker 1: you know him, Kanye Swizz is right up there, and
- 58:23Speaker 1: then Wes Is Wes has got a lot of fucking art,
- 58:26Speaker 1: a lot of it.
- 58:26Speaker 2: I like, how like he'll like, you know, uh, gravitate
- 58:30Speaker 2: to like an independent small painter like yourself or or
- 58:33Speaker 2: what's her name.
- 58:34Speaker 1: Mario Marielle, Yeah, mary Ella, Squat dead face Kip.
- 58:39Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, like if you just go to his
- 58:41Speaker 2: like you know, when we went to the spot in Buffalo,
- 58:43Speaker 2: it's just like it was like it was like it's
- 58:44Speaker 2: it's literal gallony.
- 58:45Speaker 1: But you know, I think Wes. Wes has a keen
- 58:48Speaker 1: eye for what he likes. I don't think he cares
- 58:51Speaker 1: whether something. There's certain things that he doesn't really uh
- 58:57Speaker 1: care about, like the name behind it. If it's dope
- 59:00Speaker 1: and that ship's raw speak, he's gonna fuck with it.
- 59:03Speaker 1: And I think that that's how he really operates, like
- 59:06Speaker 1: that when it comes to art and curating things. Obviously,
- 59:09Speaker 1: when it's like when he's on his fashion drip, like
- 59:11Speaker 1: he's going to be wearing like the Kreme de la Creme,
- 59:15Speaker 1: you know, the best ship that man can buy, you know.
- 59:18Speaker 1: But with art, he's got a vision and if it
- 59:20Speaker 1: speaks to him, he's going to run with it. And
- 59:22Speaker 1: that's been kind of his his genius because you know,
- 59:26Speaker 1: look how many artists he's worked with. I mean, I'm
- 59:29Speaker 1: not gonna sit here into my my horn, but obviously
- 59:33Speaker 1: I think I don't even think I know. I mean,
- 59:36Speaker 1: I've done the most ship with him. Because it's it
- 59:40Speaker 1: gets to this, it's a come to this point where
- 59:42Speaker 1: whenever Wes is working on a project or anything, the
- 59:46Speaker 1: fans expect him to do shit with me. Right, They're
- 59:49Speaker 1: like waiting, like when and then you pray for me?
- 59:52Speaker 1: Came out. There was a bunch of people in the
- 59:53Speaker 1: comments like, yah, are we getting alternate art from Isaac?
- 59:55Speaker 1: And you know, so it's like it's right because we've
- 1:00:00Speaker 1: so much projects together that people can't separate my work
- 1:00:06Speaker 1: from his work. They want the two together, right, So
- 1:00:11Speaker 1: it's really hard for them to hear the music without
- 1:00:15Speaker 1: seeing some Palaia ships go along with it. They want
- 1:00:18Speaker 1: the merch, they want the prints, they want the vinyls
- 1:00:20Speaker 1: of the cassettes.
- 1:00:21Speaker 2: So now the merch goes crazy. I see that shit everywhere.
- 1:00:24Speaker 2: I was gonna say, for you, let everybody know, just
- 1:00:27Speaker 2: kind of because people are gonna watch this there when
- 1:00:30Speaker 2: I want to know where they can buy because you
- 1:00:32Speaker 2: said you have some stuff on artsys.
- 1:00:34Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean all my ship is going to be
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: listed in my my Instagram, my bio, you know, my
- 1:00:38Speaker 1: websites there. I'm always putting out prints and merch I have.
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: You know, there's there's my origin. I have a lot
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: of original work available on Artsy. There's a lot of
- 1:00:46Speaker 1: stuff that's not even online. They got to sort of
- 1:00:49Speaker 1: hit me up, and you know, sometimes I'll bring people
- 1:00:52Speaker 1: over to my studio, kind of show them around, give
- 1:00:54Speaker 1: them a tour. What's not even what I'm saying. You know,
- 1:00:57Speaker 1: I'm working on three exhibits right now. I'm working on
- 1:01:01Speaker 1: an exhibit, a private exhibit for a members club in
- 1:01:05Speaker 1: downtown LA for the this month. I'm working on another
- 1:01:08Speaker 1: exhibit in Boston, and then I'm working on a solo
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: show for next year in New York. Oh fire, that's
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: the first time. I just brought that up, so in
- 1:01:16Speaker 1: New York.
- 1:01:16Speaker 2: So you're already kind of do you like when you
- 1:01:20Speaker 2: do that and you know you have three shows coming up?
- 1:01:21Speaker 2: Are you going to like It's almost like when you
- 1:01:24Speaker 2: create an album, do you know, like, Okay, this is
- 1:01:26Speaker 2: for Boston.
- 1:01:27Speaker 1: Yes, I'm already curating it like that, Like I'm already
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: I've wrote for for the last six months, I've been
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: developing a new body of work, kind of pushing everything
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: that I've been doing and trying to take you know,
- 1:01:39Speaker 1: put it, take it to a new give it a
- 1:01:42Speaker 1: new identity, push the envelope, and hopefully, you know, people
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: respond to it.
- 1:01:47Speaker 2: Well.
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: I'll rotate, you know, like some of the shit that
- 1:01:50Speaker 1: I had in my last show, I'll probably exhibit in
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: Boston because there's people there who hadn't seen that stuff.
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: So I'll introduce them to that work. And I just
- 1:01:59Speaker 1: kind of wrote hate and curate things a certain way.
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: The exhibit that I have at the Private Members Club,
- 1:02:05Speaker 1: they'll be in next an opening next year in January.
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: That's gonna be featuring work that's never been seen before. Obviously.
- 1:02:13Speaker 1: For the solo show in New York, that's gonna be
- 1:02:16Speaker 1: brand new work that no one's ever seen before. I
- 1:02:18Speaker 1: haven't even started on that work yet. And I actually
- 1:02:20Speaker 1: have my dad featuring an exclusive exhibit work as well. Yeah. Yeah,
- 1:02:27Speaker 1: he's gonna be exhibiting like maybe like five your dad's names,
- 1:02:30Speaker 1: Antonio Antonio Pale. So it's gonna be dope. I'm excited
- 1:02:35Speaker 1: to put that out there. I mean I just did,
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: but officially, you know, roll out and start inviting it
- 1:02:40Speaker 1: in New York. It's gonna be June sixth, got time, Manhattan,
- 1:02:43Speaker 1: six months, well seven months yea, yeah, but do congrats, Yeah,
- 1:02:47Speaker 1: thank you, it's gonna be. It's gonna be lit. You know,
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: it's gonna be presented by INC Magazine, so they're backing
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: it fire. Yeah, man, here it is.
- 1:02:54Speaker 2: Man, Well, I appreciate you pulling up brother, thanks for
- 1:02:57Speaker 2: having follow this guy. Go buy some prints. You just
- 1:03:00Speaker 2: dropped the Tupac prints. Are there any available or they
- 1:03:02Speaker 2: sold out?
- 1:03:02Speaker 1: That sold out?
- 1:03:03Speaker 2: Dono, Okay, there'd be some more prints of something.
- 1:03:06Speaker 1: Yeah, I got some ship. I got some an extension
- 1:03:08Speaker 1: of that drop coming out I think next month. So
- 1:03:12Speaker 1: you know, if they didn't get an opportunity, they didn't
- 1:03:15Speaker 1: get an opportunity to uh cop that ship that you know,
- 1:03:18Speaker 1: they can get an opportunity to cop some other shit.
- 1:03:20Speaker 2: Last question, I always am curious, how do you scan
- 1:03:22Speaker 2: a painting to where you can do the print.
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: Well, there's scanners out there that you know, scan super
- 1:03:29Speaker 1: high rest, but I don't have that ship. I don't have.
- 1:03:32Speaker 1: That's you know, that shit costs. That costs a lot
- 1:03:34Speaker 1: of money. But there's other ways to go about it.
- 1:03:37Speaker 1: You know. Sometimes you can take a high rest photograph.
- 1:03:40Speaker 1: I used to have a guy years ago. I used
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: to have a guy that would photograph my my pencil
- 1:03:45Speaker 1: drawings and color correct it, make it a super high
- 1:03:48Speaker 1: rest tip file that was good for printing. And then
- 1:03:51Speaker 1: eventually I started taking photos of my own work. So
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: everything that's shot at all the prints, that's just me
- 1:03:57Speaker 1: taking a high rest photograph of it. And then cleaning
- 1:03:59Speaker 1: it up like photoshop. Yeah, make it printable, that's yeah.
- 1:04:03Speaker 2: Even I always wondered that because I was like, yo,
- 1:04:05Speaker 2: like when people do prints, like where these scanters at?
- 1:04:08Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, especially the large paintings, you know,
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: like things that are super huge that that's taken with
- 1:04:13Speaker 1: a super high rest camera where there's.
- 1:04:15Speaker 2: Got to be specific angles to its flat.
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, the lighting has got to be like
- 1:04:19Speaker 1: in a black room, so there's no you know, light
- 1:04:22Speaker 1: reflection and you see like color, you know. So it's
- 1:04:25Speaker 1: there's ways to do it. That's probably the most efficient
- 1:04:29Speaker 1: way when you're taking pictures of large works. I mean,
- 1:04:32Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep it real. I take all my ship
- 1:04:34Speaker 1: on my iPhone really yeah. Yeah, but you know I'm
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: I took like six months in photoshop, so I cleaned
- 1:04:41Speaker 1: my ship up really well. Color, No, I have the
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: I have the I think I have the thirteen. Yeah,
- 1:04:47Speaker 1: so I got to update my ship, you know what
- 1:04:50Speaker 1: I'm saying. But yeah, there's ways to do it. All
- 1:04:52Speaker 1: those files that West has, you know, that's just me
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: taking the photos myself, cleaning it up, making sure that
- 1:04:57Speaker 1: it's at the highest album yeah, yeah, and make sure
- 1:05:01Speaker 1: it's there's no glares or any type of like, you know,
- 1:05:05Speaker 1: just weird weird imperfections in the photos. So well now
- 1:05:08Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I mean, you know, people don't people
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: don't know how to do that shit, and that's part
- 1:05:13Speaker 1: of you know, being really embedded and wearing all those hats.
- 1:05:17Speaker 1: So yeah, get your shit up.
- 1:05:19Speaker 2: Get your shit up out there, man, Isaac. I appreciate
- 1:05:21Speaker 2: your brother.
- 1:05:21Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
- 1:05:22Speaker 2: Yes, sir, big dog boom fire Yo. We're wrapping up
- 1:05:25Speaker 2: an interview, man. Of course, we want to shout out
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- 1:05:30Speaker 2: their seventh birthday this month, So happy birthday to Hardean.
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- 1:05:58Speaker 2: about to go gamble with your You get into that cab,
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