1998: The Golden Year of Hip-Hop Photoshop
Trick Daddy - www.thug.com (1998)This may not be in the classical style of early-Photoshop era rap albums, but i feel that taken as a whole it presents a distillation of what was going on during this new, exciting movement. People were beginning to have regular access to the internet, and with a few right clicks, drags and drops an album cover, nay, an entire album concept could be created.
Juvenile - 400 Degreez (1998)Everything you need to know about the artform is here. The layout, the literal representation of the album's title, the font effects, the
bizarre posturing, some fire. Consider this one the blueprint.
Master P - MP Da Last Don (1998)
Master P's No Limit label, often referred to as No Talent, is considered by scholars to be THE major player in the Photoshop album cover game, with memorable efforts for Soulja Slim, The Hot Boys, C-Murder, and some of the albums pictured below. Particularly noteworthy here is the strong work on the 'large hand/foreground' effect.
Silkk Tha Shocker - Charge It 2 Da Game (1998)
More vintage 'large hand/foreground' creativity from No Limit.
Capone N Noreaga - The War Report (1998)The east coast gets involved here, as the ever-present sinister undertones conveyed by fire, smoke, and in this case waves of heat continue. For me, this is classic in it's close resemblance to the SNES game; Probotechtor - Alien Rebels.
Snoop Dogg - Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told (1998)
Whereas pre-'98 Snoop album covers featured cartoon drawings of dogs and pimps, the PS-era Snoop album (for which he briefly signed to No Limit) carbon copied this style directly to the Photoshop format, paradoxically resulting in an image even more reminiscent of a comic book.
Dr Dooom/Kool Keith - First Come, First Served (1999)
Although this album dropped a year outside of '98, Keith expertly apes the genre with all the giant hand/font/posture techniques pitched alongside a couple of different species of simian, a cockroach, and a burger with a mouse in it. The sad conflict of this work is that it stands as both a death toll to 1998's Hip-Hop Photoshop creative outburst, and a final classic example of the artform in it's own right.
