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Takashi Murakami’s “Buddha” painting in Jay-Z’s “Blue Magic” video…
It’s beyond official: Art is the new bling. When KANYE WEST dropped the TAKASHI MURAKAMI-encased “Graduation” LP last month it was a major breakthrough in the Hip-Hop world (not a genre particularly known for its innovative album packaging), and now it seems his mentor (turned blatant imitator) JAY-Z has strategically placed an image of one of Murakami’s recent “Buddha” paintings in the Hype Williams-directed video for his rather uninspiring new song “Blue Magic,” which also sees the Jigga man posing in front of what appears to be a Damien Hirst-style spin art skull painting for emphasis. Who knows, if this trend keeps up maybe rappers will start putting money into artist’s pockets instead of Jacob’s, and might actually have something of value to show for it all once their inevitably short careers come to a premature end. Of course, Kanye is already ahead of the game in that regard too: Murakami even makes his Jesus pieces…
READ ON:
Hmmm, sure seems like Kanye got there first:
The Murakami Jesus piece concept…
And the real deal…
February 7th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
[…] only now that we fully realize how wrong we were in reporting late last year that “art is the new bling.” As this recent photo of god-knows-who evidences, bling is apparently the new bling (and the […]