Description

In 1989 most rap covers were built on toughness: gold chains, scowls, cars and guns. De La Soul's debut arrived covered in flowers. The cover was designed by Toby Mott of the Grey Organisation, a British art collective that had moved to New York after being prosecuted for an attack on the art galleries of Cork Street in London. Mott later described the design as a deliberate move away from the macho visual codes of hip-hop at the time.

He made it by hand. Mott laid the three members on the floor of his loft, face up, with their heads forming a triangle, and photographed them from above while hanging off a stepladder. The idea was that the cover would have no right way up. He then drew bright flowers on sheets of acetate with Posca paint pens, laid them over the black-and-white photograph and copied the result with a rostrum camera. It was, he noted, the era before Apple Macs and digital scanning.

The daisies carried the group's message. They called their outlook the D.A.I.S.Y. Age, short for "Da Inner Sound, Y'all," and Posdnuos said the flowers signalled the group's sunnier, more playful spirit. Their own first idea had been an elevator halfway up with just their faces showing. Released on 6 February 1989, the album was later added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry, and its fluorescent flowers still stand out among the hard images of late 1980s rap.

Credit

Cover design by Toby Mott of the Grey Organisation