We wanted something that was a little more encompassing of the whole feel of the album, so because of that, we had to go back again. We flew down to Caroline and went through a few different renditions of creative and it got down to where the album was creatively, sonically, and the overall tone. We finished the album artwork two weeks before we announced it. Like the things that you see on the forefront that look so seamless takes a strong team of a lot of people in the back that are working 24 hours to execute it perfectly. It’s not the best practice, but we’re tested for and we’ve done it many times. It’s not something for the faint of heart, but we work well under pressure. The thing about us, we’re just fourth-quarter soldiers. It’s interesting that it came down to the wire like that. I always want Cole to be happy with whatever we’re working on, and if it can’t be me, as the Head of Creative Services, I’ll bring in someone that will be able to execute. 1 thing is for him to be satisfied as a client when we work on projects. So, at the end of the day, as much as we’re friends, my No. The only difference is now, on the day-to-day he’s still someone I work for, and we have deadlines and expectations of solidifying and conquering things. Our relationship as friends has become more solid, just over the time we’ve spent together. I’d say now, we’re even deeper friends because we’ve had so many years together as friends seeing each other’s ups and downs. Our relationship was initially all personal, all hip-hop, talking about music every day because we’re both fans of hip-hop in an intense way.
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So if I’m working with Raeana helping the apparel team, or Derrick and Matty, or my daily conversations with Candace and Damian, it’s always like, “What’s the connection, what’s the missing pieces,” and fill it in. The day-to-day is talking to everybody in each vertical and figuring out, like, what is it that I can do or what is that I can find to fix a problem.
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It could be this kind of company.” So, we’ve always known that eventually there would be other ceilings to break, but now to see it happen in real pieces, real meetings, new avenues such as The Messenger podcast, and tons of meetings that we’ve taken for things that haven’t happened yet, now it’s becoming more real than just ideas. What does it look like for all the artist’s trajectories, and what does Dreamville look like as a whole company for everyone?” And now it’s getting to that place from the original thought of, “Yo, it could be this big. Whether it’s between tours or between COVID, we’ve had time to put things to the side and be like, “What does the company look like beyond music and beyond the J. It’s only been the last few years where we’ve had time to settle back and forth. And I think one thing that I’ve always seen is that this could go as big as Cole could go, and I always thought he was great as an artist. I’ve been on the journey with Cole from when he was in college, so there was always a thought that the team would eventually expand and grow into all these things. What has it been like watching the imprint grow as a label and company? Whether it was capturing the scrappy rookie on his 2010 mixtape Friday Night Lights, showing the fully realized superstar sitting amongst the clouds on 2014 Forest Hills Drive, or depicting the retrospective father looking to the future on 4 Your Eyez Only. And now Cole is a seasoned veteran preparing for what might be his last dance on The Off-Season.ĭreamville has grown a lot over the past year, launching Dreamville Studios and having its own content house. Brown has captured every pivotal moment of J.
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Cole after he interviewed him about his debut mixtape, The Come Up, for his rap blog Pardon Me Duke back in the mid-2000s. From there, Brown began working with Cole and Dreamville on the side while still doing freelance graphic design and advertising gigs out of a WeWork-type space owned by Director X. For Dreamville’s VP of Creative Services, Felton Brown, this is a history he also had a large hand in writing.īrown initially met J. In many ways, Cole’s cover art has mirrors his evolution as an artist over the course of his decade-long career.įrom his pivotal 2009 mixtape The Warm Up, shot by Chad Griffith-that was meant to be taken indoors until a blizzard locked them out which resulted in the now-iconic shot of Cole standing in the snow cradling a basketball-to Cole simply sitting on the roof of his childhood home for the cover of 2014 Forest Hills Drive, every album cover that comes from the Dreamville head honcho has brought fans deeper into his life, music, and artistic journey. Cole’s album artwork tells as much of a story as his music does. Cover art is more than an album’s visual depiction. In many cases, cover art takes on its own mythos.