How do you feel about the state of graphic design in hip-hop today?

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I think it's still behind, but I think it's come a long way especially since we first start doing these projects. I really feel like the work I did with Chance put more of an emphasis on actual artwork. I mean, look at the Slime Season 3 cover, it's great. I also love what Soulection does with their covers; that's fueled by the Instagram photographer hype, but it's good work.

Is your art a part of the youth and mental wellness program you're working on in Chicago?

It's an overall health awareness initiative we are trying to push, and we're very new to it but I see it changing the landscape in our community both figuratively and literally. My personal art is very much an exploration of the human mind from my perspective. I think that's apparent in the Chance artwork through the surreal themes and juxtaposition of the subject and the sky, the individual being a microcosm of the universe at large, which in the works is typically above and behind Chance. You always see stars and the sky in the covers, and that's just a part of my DNA that I put into the branding. It's very personal to me. My father was an amazing artist and musician who had an incident after taking LSD, which triggered paranoid schizophrenia, and later bipolar disorder. This led to him not being a part of my life for a long time. After learning this as a child I had a huge fear of losing my mind, and I was more scared of that than death. Resisting it made me more anxious so I turned it into a positive and made it what my art would explore.

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I don't think LSD alone took my father over the edge. I believe it was internalized trauma and the drugs were a coping mechanism, which eventually compromised his mental stability. That's where the interest in promoting mental wellness and helping gain understanding about the importance of mental health and disorders comes from. I think it's important to provide an outlet so we don't get so pent up that our fears turn in to actual voices that we can't escape. I think my father's situation was directly related to, and a result of, circumstances that impact the disenfranchised and I believe it's common in communities that lack resources, just like where we're from.

Did working with an artist like Chance who's been so open about his use of psychedelics affect your perception of them at all?

Naw, not at all. I think psychedelics are useful but not for everyone. Drugs in general expose vulnerabilities and can leave you open to the wrong stuff. But I've been researching psychedelics for a while so I was already informed about the enlightening and positive effects of DMT and LSD before the Acid Rap project.

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Your three covers for Chance's mixtapes seem to track a progression—10 Days he's looking up, Acid Rap he's looking right at us, and for Chance 3 he's got his eyes towards the ground.

I'd be lying if I said we planned this all from the beginning. Instead it's been a bit serendipitous but the presence of the trilogy really just rounds it out. The decision to have Chance look down was his own. He was holding his baby daughter in the shoot because he wanted to capture the expression he had on his face when he looked at her, and that distinguishes Chance's posture from the other two. For me in 10 Day he's looking up to a future he is soon to inherit, Acid Rap is like him being in it exploring/experimenting and Chance 3 is like maturity, fully stepping into his greatness, his focus isn't so much on himself but on the clear future.