5 iconic album covers by virgil abloh

I'm sure your heard that Virgil Abloh has died well we eternally are grateful for everything he has contributed to culture and wanted to create this list to honour some of the impact he has had..

5- Luv Is Rage 2 by Lil Uzi Vert

When asked "how did you meet lil uzi vert?" Virgil said:

"It's super organic and we met in sort of an ironic way. I met Lil Uzi in 2013, it might have been. Me and my friends in New York were DJing a ton, finding ourselves, and getting booked in random cities. We went to Philly and were DJing this party, we didn't know what it was, it was called like “Hamster Dance,” some weed festival in a nearly abandoned artist loft or warehouse. We were waiting to play and this kid gets on and he's really energetic and short. All of the sudden this music comes on and we were like, What the fuck? This kid is next level. It turned out to be Lil Uzi."

4- 808s and heartbreaks by Kanye West

The cover itself was also a departure from the usual ‘loud’ covers Kanye used in his previous albums. Complex called the minimal approach ‘groundbreaking at the time’. They go on to say ‘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’, after placing it #1 on the 50 best rap album covers of the past 5 years.

3- Pray For Paris by Westside Gunn

The album was all set to drop, and as it did, something unusual happened. The bottom half of the album cover was blocked by a gray box. When I first saw this, I initially thought the artwork had been uploaded incorrectly, and didn’t pay it too much time. As time passed, I realized that this had been done on purpose.

The art depicts a young man, dressed in Renaissance Era robes, sword in hand, holding the decapitated head of another man. The younger man has some crudely photo-shopped chains that resemble those of WSG himself. The cover art was designed by famous artist and fashion designer Virgil Abloh. Although the context of the artwork is rather graphic, the painting shows very little in the way of blood or guts.

Why did Apple decide to censor this? The answer is that, if an image like this were to be put into a fancy art museum, families would spend tons of money to see it and to take their kids to see it. Put this on the cover of a rap album, and it becomes far too violent to see. There are far more graphic lyrics and imagery in the lyrics of the album. If Apple had wanted to censor the clean version of the album, I suppose that would have been acceptable, but the explicit version had no reason to be played with like that.

2- LONG LIVE A$AP BY Asap Rocky

ASAP Rocky’s debut album cover is well-remembered, featuring the rapper with a U.S. flag draped over him. Abloh was the Creative Director for the album and was fully involved in the whole project. He came up with the idea for the “Fashion Killa’ video; he made the set designs for some of the early album release shows.

1- Yeezus by Kanye West

Abloh’s work for Yeezus is likely his most iconic album cover to date. Made in collaboration with Justin Saunders, Joe Perez, Matthew M. Williams, and Kanye West, the Yeezus cover went through many different iterations before landing on its super minimalist design. According to the Figures of Speech book, ten different designers helped make the cover and George Condo even submitted a sculpture. After visiting a popular New York City magazine shop–Printed Matter–Abloh conceived the idea of making something that looked like a handmade collage with tape and paper cutouts. This led to a clear case cover with just a simple red piece of tape, which Abloh described as an “open casket” that marked the death of the physical CD format.

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