The infamous Beatle Paul McCartney took a risky move when working with the provocative Kanye West, but the results certainly paid off. McCartney spoke to Rolling Stone on Wednesday about the 2014 and 2015 collaborations.

The odd couple worked on three songs together, releasing the aggressive “All day,” the country-inspired “FourFiveSeconds,” and the touching “Only One.” The songs combine the best of both worlds: Kanye’s volatile artistry and hip-hop experience, with McCartney’s pleasing melodies and veteran status.

“The only deal I made with Kanye was that if it doesn’t work, we won’t tell anyone,” McCartney told Rolling Stone, “I didn’t know his system. I’d heard things like, ‘He’s got a room full of guys working on riffs, and he walks around going, ‘I like that one.’ It reminded me of Andy Warhol, these artists who use students to paint their backgrounds and things. It’s a well-used technique. I thought, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to fit into that, but let’s see. Here goes nothing.'”

The unlikely duo have a core similarity of success and vision, though Kanye’s unpredictability might have caused McCartney some concern. McCartney pinpointed the creative process that helped their interests collide.

The Beatle also spoke of his inspiration for a riff, that become the whistle in “All day.” McCartney got the idea from looking at a Picasso painting “The Old Guitarist.” Kanye’s next album, The Life of Pablo, is another example of their similarities — an admiration for the revolutionary pioneer of cubism.

“Kanye was just collecting things,” he said. “We weren’t going to sit down and write a song so much as talk and spark ideas off each other. It was only when I got this song, the Rihanna record and ‘Only One,’ the three tracks we did, that I went, ‘I get it. He’s taken my little whistle-y thing.’ It returned to me as an urban hip-hop riff. I love that record.”

McCartney was hesitant to call Kanye a genius, a word that is often thrown around the hard-to-grasp Kanye. However McCartney does comment on the core of what he saw in Kanye, and the potential they had to make music together.

“I think he’s a great artist. Take My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I played it when I was cooking, and it was like, “This is good. There’s some really innovative stuff.”

Although McCartney is one of the most famous rock musicians of our time, he still has respect for hip-hop, calling it  “the music of now.”

While Paul had John Lennon, and Kanye had Jay Z, the two found a new kind of partnership in each other.

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The post Paul McCartney Reflects on his Risky Work with Kanye appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Hailing from Maryland by way of North Carolina, Micah Williams is a 19-year-old emcee who describes his sound as “alternative rap.” For his newest visual, directed by Marc E, Micah channels Andy Warhol and his classic art film, Hamburger. In addition to being a really cool clip that quite impressively recreates Warhol’s work, “The 27 Club” also gives listeners an earful, as well. Peep it down below.

For more from Micah Williams, visit whoismicahw.com.

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If Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol had a love child, he would be D*Face. The English multi-media artist inspired by the 80’s uses his dysfunctional characters to satirize “media-saturated environment.” For someone who criticizes the media, D*Face surely knows how to use it to his advantage with a constantly updated Blog and Facebook page… slightly hypocritical.

He defines his art as “aPOPcalyptic”, a blend of pop art a his unique D*Face touch.

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The Brooklyn Museum directors who turned down hosting “Art in the Streets” this year must be shaking with frustration.

Turns out, the exhibition has brought a record-breaking number of people to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. In fact, “Art in the Streets” is officially the most-attended exhibit that the museum has ever seen. A total of 201,352 visitors came by to see the show at the museum’s Geffen Contemporary space in Little Tokyo, with over 32,000 people in the last week alone.

However, all news, as usual, must be taken with a grain of salt. While the exhibition was a real hit, the “breaking-records” part of things may be due to some other factors. For example, the second most-attended show was the 2002 Andy Warhol retrospective with 195,000 visitors, but that exhibition was available for viewing for only 12 weeks, while “Art in the Streets” was available for 16. Little things like that go a long way, and based on just 12 weeks, the Warhol exhibit would win.

Either way, the event, spearheaded by MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch, definitely says a lot about the growing interest in and appreciation for graffiti and street art in today’s society. It featured artists like Shepard Fairey, Kevin Scharf, Swoon, and Barry McGee.

In fact, the symbiotic relationship between street art and society has gotten to the point where even “notorious street artists” are giving back. It seems that one of the biggest factors in increased attendance was a little help from Banksy, another artist featured in the show. The British artist donated a ton of money to the museum to sponsor “Free Mondays” for visitors. This sponsorship brought a little over 4,000 people to the museum every week. 

The post L.A. MOCA Sets Breaks Attendance Records With “Art in the Streets” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Fab 5 Freddy, hip-hop icon and former host of “Yo! MTV Raps“, is currently showcasing his newest exhibition at Gallery 151 on the Bowery in New York. The exhibit, entitled “New York: New Work” features works of two distinct artistic styles; the new show combines crystal-encrusted digital renderings of pin-up models and boxers, as well as reworked paintings of famous graffiti tag works. Freddy comments: “We take these images [of boxers and models], we digitally alter them, and then the images are printed on canvas, and then we apply thousands of these little of these Swarovski crystals to them…[the other] pieces are new wave work[s] with with elements of graffiti, and the background is a train that I executed quite a while ago, which was a homage to Andy Warhol..I’m remixing forms and shapes of my past and turning it into something new.”

Freddy’s exhibit can be seen at Gallery 151, located at 350 Bowery (Btwn. 4th Street and Great Jones), and will be running until July 1st, so hurry and check it out. Hours are Tuesday – Friday 2-8pm, Saturday & Sunday 12:30 – 7:30pm.

Check out Freddy’s interview with Pix 11 about the gallery below

photo via Bowery Boogie

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First famous for his art and then famous for being famous, Jean-Michel Basquiat is a legend. And nowadays, every legend deserves their own movie.

Here’s where Tamra Davis comes in. Davis who was a friend of Basquiat’s filmed an interview in 1985, where their mutual friend Becky Johnson asked questions and Basquiat subtly and brilliantly answered. The footage from that interview has never been shown publicly before, but now over 20 years after his death, Davis has put together a movie surrounding that interview. Besides for the actual interview footage, the movie includes commentary from close friends of Basquiat like Julian Schnabel, Fab 5 Freddy, Annina Nosei and Suzanne Mallouk giving us details on the artists remarkable, yet short life. The Radiant Child allows us a glimpse into Basquiat’s brilliant mind, but leaves us saddened that a man who was so innovative and  possessed such talent couldn’t stick around for longer.

Basquiat began his career as a graffiti artist and later became a neo-expressionist painter with Andy Warhol as one of his top admirers. On August 12, 1988 Basquiat died of heroin overdose in New York City.

Jean-Michel Basquiat will forever be remembered.

The Radiant Child is in theaters now.

The post The Radiant Child appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

From 1962 to 1972, George Lois changed the face of magazine design with his ninety-two covers for Esquire magazine. He stripped the cover down to a graphically concise yet conceptually potent image that ventured beyond the mere illustration of a feature article. Lois exploited the communicative power of the mass-circulated front page to stimulate and provoke the public into debate, pressing Americans to confront controversial issues like racism, feminism, and the Vietnam War. Viewed as a collection, the covers serve as a visual timeline and a window onto the turbulent events of the 1960s. Initially received as jarring and prescient statements of their time, the covers have since become essential to the iconography of American culture.

Tonight, Lois speaks with Wired Creative Director, Scott Dadich at the closing of the exhibition, which has been running since last April.

(vi@ SPD)

After the jump, Lois cusses like a Yahoo CEO while sharing the stories of his seminal covers, like the above of Muhammad Ali, Ali’s nemesis Sonny Liston dressed as Santa Claus, Andy Warhol drowning in can of Campbell’s tomato soup and more.

RELATED: Breakfast with Mr. Lois:  Part 1 | Part 2 |Part 3

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