Hey Man... Chuck U!

by Crystal Erickson
3/4/2009

If you know anything about the local music scene, you’ve seen a concert poster, album or magazine cover by Chuck U. His style is easily recognizable and distinct with its bright covers and intricate detail. He describes his drawings as doodles, but that is a bit too modest. Chuck U creates tiny worlds in his work, composite of many various drawings that come together cohesively in one piece. Common motifs include bubble fonts, bright colors, paisley prints, tubular figures, city skylines, curlicues and coils. The artist has created works for Vita.MN, Star Tribune, and Utne Reader, and was recently featured in the February issue of Juxtapoz, featuring one of his latest commissions, the cover of Dance Band’s Geekadelic. Other recent projects include the album art for Muja Messiah’s Thee Adventures of a B-Boy D-Boy. He also designed the Bella Sol ’08 logo, and painted it on their promotional truck. His aesthetic may have started in hip-hop, but has evolved into a class of its own. Chuck U began his freelance career in design making posters for the Hook Up, a popular hip-hop night at the Dinkytowner. His career took off as a result of his hip-hop roots, and now includes selling original prints.

Q: When did you get into hip-hop?

A: Ever since I was a little kid, I was into hip-hop. I was at a garage sale and some girl recommended I buy these Phat Boys and Rakim tapes, so I did. My parents took them away, so I from then on I had to listen to hip-hop in secret

Q: What would you describe your style, and what inspired it?

A: Hand-drawn pen and ink, influenced both by old-school, Will Bradley-type graphics and new-school graphics. I started [graffiti] writing in high school, and it evolved from there.

Q: What is the typical creative process like for a project? Do you still actively seek out work, or are they coming to you now?

A: I just start it. Sometimes the client will be very specific with what they want. Other times they’ll be like “just listen to our album and do what you feel.” I Kind of doodle in my sketchbook, draw random stuff, then make a collage to make a full piece. Now days, people come to me for the most part. When I was first starting out though, I was a whore, I went to every show, with a mini portfolio, and a stack of business cards. But the last two or three years people have been mostly contacting me, which is cool. It took years and years to make any money at this. I still don’t make lots. I used to trade stuff. I’d trade for beats and studio time, or drink tickets and guest list spots.

Q: What do you think is unique about the Minneapolis hip-hop scene? Everyone always says Minneapolis is so big on hip-hop, but so are other cities. Obviously, there is something special going on here. What is that to you?

A: I haven’t been to many cities, but in Minneapolis, you jump off a building and chances are, you’ll land on a rapper. For such a small scene, that’s a lot of people making music. Having Rhymesayers be from here inspired a lot of kids, having that in your background. They think, “If they can do it, I can do it too”.

Q: Your style is so obviously hip-hop, but yet translates well to other genres. Why is that?

A: I never focused on trying to make my stuff look like hip-hop. It just ended up there. Those were the shows I went to. I consciously tried to stay away from the whole “hip-hop” aesthetic. I try to change a little [of my aesthetics] to make it fit the music. I usually listen to the album before I start the art.

Q: Bella Sol van. When did you do that?

A: That was last year’s Bella Sol, a big hippie festival in Harmony Park. They drive around in the truck to help promote the festival.

Q: The Hook Up is a pretty important hip-hop night. How’d you get into doing their fliers?

A: Unicus was the promoter, I had done flyers and stuff for him before he started the hook up. So he had me do the flier every month. He would let me be pretty creative, with my weird drawings and stuff, let me make everything bigger. Usually the bands are bigger and the art smaller. Unicus was pretty cool about letting me try new stuff. They still throw it, every Saturday.

Q: How about the Foundation posters?

A: Madlib and Questlove, it was the promoters that hired me, not Foundation. But Mixmaster Mike was for Foundation. Sometimes it’s the promoter, the venue or the band itself that hire me to do a poster.

Q: And the Muja cover?

A: With the Muja cover, I wanted it to be political and gangster at the same time. I was trying to figure out a solution, because he’s socially conscious and gangster. Blaxploitation films were like that, a Dolemite-type movie poster. I want to avoid using any hip-hop clichés, staples. Breakdancers, turntables—you can only use so much before it becomes too played out. Boomboxes—

Q: That makes me think of the idea of how you want to make sure in hip-hop, your work adds to it, or else it’s sort of viewed irrelevant. What do you think you’re adding to hip-hop?

A: I don’t think I’m adding much to it. If anything hip-hop adds to me. Unknown Prophets, Unicus, Kanser, etc. I owe a lot to the scene for giving me my early work.

Q: I think there’s a level of authenticity in your work, and a lot of the work going on in the local hip-hop scene. A lot of people, though, heavily rely on what happened in the past in producing their work. It just looks sort of fake, kind of like going to Dre Day. We’re romanticizing this golden era of hip-hop or gangsta rap, without celebrating what’s going on now. There’s so much room to grow, evolve, expand on what was started, instead of merely re-hashing what was done. What do you think about this?

A: That’s one of the things I love about hip-hop, that there’s a bunch of subgenres. Like locally there’s Unknown Prophets and Kanser, Brother Ali who kind of make “classic sounding” rap, , then there’s people like P.O.S., Fill In the Breaks, and Kristoff Krane who don’t really fit into any genre, who are moving the genre forward. Then there’s the more street cats like Muja, Slim, and Trama, that are a bit more hardcore. I love that there’s not really a “Minneapolis sound,” although most of the rest of the country think it’s emo rap. Hopefully Muja will blow up and change that.

Q: Another characteristic of hip-hop, as a lived culture, you had to be there, see it. You obviously have this going in your work, you are part of the culture here. Any thoughts?

A: Hip-hop is better participating in the crowd. But you can do it yourself too. You can live on a farm in the middle of no where and still be down. There is deeper meaning if you’re there seeing it first hand.

Q: Your work coincides with a lot of trends, with the arts and crafts movement, DIY ethics, things that are popular in other genres now. These movements have suddenly become fashionable, but have always had a presence in hip-hop. Does that make it simply a trend, causing it to lose power? Do you worry about this? How do you avoid this?

A: I don’t worry. I try to stay current, but I don’t let that be my focus or influence me to much. Wood-type fonts and earth tones were hot in the early ’00s. Hand-drawn letters and ‘80s colors are hot now. I don’t think hand-drawn illustrations are ever going out of style, though the prominent styles may change. Graphic design style is ever evolving, popular fonts and colors change every few years, will change again pretty soon. More mainstream design and illustration has gotten a lot cooler. Now mainstream companies are embracing it now, like Target is making their shit look really fresh. The corporations have to hire cool people to make cool things. Which is good.

Q: What about the idea of branding oneself, as kind of a response to consumerism and corporate identity. You automatically recognize the Target symbol and the McDonalds arches. But this also holds true for the work of an artist. Do you think this is good or bad? Does it limit your work?

A: I do have my own style now, and I’m glad people come to me for that. It can be limiting though. For one project I feel like switching my style up, and they’ll be like “Oh, I want you to do the style you’re known for.” In a few years, it kind of evolved. The Hook Up fliers started a slow progression to what I do now.

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