The presence of the hip hop album cover has blessed us with a plethora of iconic images over the past few decades. Nas gave us a sneak pic into his childhood before becoming a staple of the New York rap scene, while Jay-Z, T.I, Eminem and Fabolous set the scene for their own albums depicting the mean streets that birthed their unique sounds.
If you’ve ever wondered where your favourite album covers took place, you need look no further. With some keen detective work (and Google Maps), the fine folks over at Mass Appeal have put together the second instalment of a wide array of real life locations accompanied by their album cover equivalents; revealing the truth behind the music.
It’s almost unnerving to see these real life locations; to think what inspired the artist to capture a decrepit street corner, a run down pawn shop or a city monument. Location is vital to hip hop; the identity and sound of an artist is moulded and defined by the areas that they grew up in. Kendrick Lamar, Game and Dr. Dre recount endless tales of the struggles as a youth in Compton, while 50 Cent reenergised the New York rap scene with his gritty pop infused retellings.
There is a simple beauty behind capturing moments such as this, to encapsulate a memory and freeze it in place. Album covers do not tend to command the same respect as they once did, and current generation albums are not often judged at all for the aesthetic that accompanies them, so it is all the more important to inform the next generation of hiphopheads of the locations and figures that shaped the rap landscape as we know it.
Data analytics and the power of the internet have allowed rap fans and nerds alike to breathe new life into previous generations of the genre, even compiling the statistics behind the most successful rap labels of all time.
If it takes a digital medium such as Google Maps to educate the new breed of fans, so be it.