10 Great Hip-Hop Covers, With Wu-Tang, Nas and Eminem

Acclaimed photographer Daniel Hastings tells all

I came to the photography game armed with only a 35mm SLR camera. Over the past 30 years, I’ve been at the forefront of hip-hop cover design and artwork. My love for the genre has resulted in over 150 album covers, and I’ve directed more than 40 music videos.

From a very young age, I was experimenting with darkroom techniques, lighting and composition, inspired by classic album covers across salsa, rock ‘n roll, old-school soul and disco. My record collection expanded from Fania and Ruben Blades to Iron Maiden, the Police, Kool and the Gang and Barry White. All of them motivated me to shoot and produce outstanding album covers.

Wu-Tang Clan 

Enter The 36 Chambers (1993)

This cover almost didn’t happen, because all of Wu didn’t show up. RZA was like, “If all of my brothers aren’t here, we’re not making the cover.” I’d seen the Wu before their ascent, at the Jack the Rapper convention in Atlanta. I saw them in their rawest form, coming to the stage with masks on and bum rushing whoever was in front of them. The place went bananas! They wore stocking masks and hoodies. You can see me in the background. Fast forward to the album cover, when all of the Wu didn’t show, I asked RZA, “Why don’t you do what you did in Atlanta? You don’t need to show your faces. You are the Wu-Tang Clan!” RZA took a step back, looked at me for about 15 seconds and said, “Alright, let’s do it.”

Nas

I Am… (1999)

Creative director Ola Kudu hired me to shoot the cover. The idea was to transform Nas into King Tut. I automatically thought of my good friend, the artist and sculptor #DaveCortes. During the photo session, Dave put clay on Nas’ face to get an imprint. And we almost had an accident, because the clay blocked his nostril and he couldn’t breathe. On the second attempt, we got a perfect mold. He was a great sport. When we saw the final piece, we were all blown away. But I had a huge problem. I was essentially shooting a mirror. Because of the gold reflective paint, everything was a reflection. That’s when I realized that what defines a face in a picture is the balance between highlights and shadows. I placed 4×8-ft. white and black boards facing the sculpture, opened a hole through the boards for my camera, and instead of pointing the light at the sculpture, I pointed it toward the boards. So, essentially, what you see are the reflections of white and black boards to give you the illusion of highlights and shadows.

Raekwon 

Only Built for Cuban Linx (1995) 

At this time Wu-Tang had blown up. I hadn’t seen them since 36 Chambers and I was looking to work with them again. Raekwon said, “I want Danny to shoot my shit!” That was music to my ears. But when we got to the album shoot, there was tension. All the members didn’t see eye to eye. Not everyone was happy. Through the lens, I captured those micro-energies as a window into the friction.

Jodeci

Diary of a Mad Band (1993)

Although Jodeci was technically R&B, they were, ironically, the most hip-hop of all my cover shoots. I only had an hour of time with these brothers. The shoot started at 10 a.m., but they didn’t show up until 3 p.m. One of the things that I learned early in life was, don’t take anything personal and don’t let stress affect you. Stay focused. That moment is going to come, and you need all your senses to capture it. When an artist is running late, I get the assistants to set up every light, every camera, and prep the sets. All the artists have to do is walk through and give me their magic.

Big Pun

Capital Punishment (1999)

I shot this cover outside Sue’s Rendezvous, which was a popular strip club back in the day. Pun used to go to that place and we had access inside and outside. He was like, “Let’s go to the Bronx.” Pun was a New Yorker and he wanted to unify all the boroughs. So, if you look inside the album, you’ll see him at various landmarks. For the Bronx, he was on top of the old Yankee Stadium. In Manhattan, he was holding a nude model’s breasts—she was dressed as the Statue of Liberty (an homage to the Rolling Stone Janet Jackson cover). For Queens, Pun was on Queens Bridge. He was 600 pounds, but he was like a fly Papichulo-type mofo, so I wanted to focus on his facial features and his mean mug. Without even trying, he had a look that would kill. As soon as I took that shot, I knew. When we developed the prints, we said. “That’s the Capital Punishment look!” RIP Big Pun.

Eminem

The Slim Shady LP (Special Edition CD) (1999)

I shot this cover at the beginning of Eminem’s career. Em barely had any tattoos and the album wasn’t in stores yet. They hired me to shoot additional pictures and publicity. But they ran into a problem. A lot of stores found the cover (not shot by me) controversial, because there was a woman’s leg coming out of the trunk. So, all the big stores wanted a different image. My shot replaced the original album cover.

KRS-One

Return of the Boom Bap (1993)

This was my first album cover, how I came out of the gate. KRS-One wanted a basement type of studio feel. Before an MC would go to a fancy studio with engineers and such, they would start at their home or basement studio. That’s why KRS was recording his vocals into his headphones. The concept of using your headphones as an inverted microphone—it’s something that my generation just knew. I used a reversal tungsten film—Fuji 64T—and shot with a daylight strobe to get the blue undertones. I cross-processed the film to get saturated high contrast. I was big on opening the shutter speed to create a blur. Looking at the photo now, I notice a Heineken bottle in the background. I remember that was our “go to” beer back then. It’s interesting what artifacts and pop-historical items appear when you take a close look.

Jeru The Damaja

Wrath of the Math (1996)

This was one of my favorite covers because my lighting techniques at that point were so insane. Not that many contemporary photographers were doing this type of work. I approached my scene the same way a cinematographer does for a movie. My lighting was very complex. The concept for the cover was that Jeru had energy and the power to destroy his enemies. “Super Scientifical Powers”—inspired by his lyrics. To achieve that without the use of Photoshop, I had him hold a reflector with a bare lightbulb inside. I know that by overexposing that reflector, the light would fog and burn everything around it. But I needed to light his face a bit, so I make a snoot (a cone) to cover my strobe units. I made it out of black foil to direct the light, so the strobe wouldn’t hit everything and only touch his face.

Keith Murray

The Most Beautifullist Thing In This World (1994)

We shot this on Long Island, where Keith is from. The result of leaving the shutter open is demonstrated by the cars with red and white lights streaking across the frame. You can’t leave the shutter speed open too long, because it will mess up your picture and the light will become crazy on top of your film. I had a strobe, I had the lights coming from his headlights, and I was shooting under a tree. What you see on top of the photo, those blurry figurine things, are pieces of the sky seeping through the tree. You see Keith Murray’s half-face as the shutter speed started burning the film and it created this beautiful imagery.

The Lox

Money Power Respect (1998)

I did three album shoots for The Lox—this one was the first and last with the shiny suits. We went to their hood in Yonkers and the building where they grew up. Lots of shots of them reminiscing of their younger days. They wanted to show the reality of their style and where they came from, and we just did that. Until the very end of the day, when the shiny-suits man himself—yes, Puffy—came in with suits for them to wear. I think that was the end of shiny suit for the Lox. They never wore shit like that again. They nicknamed me #TonyMoncamera because of my accent. I went to the studio a few times to hang out and continued to work with them after the Badboy era. I love how they hold it down, for each other, a true brotherhood. You don’t see a brotherhood like that in this industry.