Shea Serrano - Rap Genius Interview lyrics

Rappers are essentially colorful characters who illustrate themselves with lyrics, flows, and cadences on a palette of snares and ba**. But the music itself, imperative as it is, only explores one side of the rapper's greatness; it's the look that immortalizes the legacy. 2Pac's bandana solidified his reputation as the perennial Westside outlaw. Had the Notorious B.I.G. worn a size medium tee, he likely would have just stuck with the name “Christopher." On “The World Is Yours,” Nas relayed the finishing touches of his suburban street-dweller style: “suede timbs on my feets makes my cipher complete.” The faces, clothes, and accessories of hip-hop history are integral to its story. Bun B's Rap Coloring book, illustrated by Shea Serrano, gives an opportunity for rap fans to tell his or her own. The 48-page adventure features coloring pages and out-of-the-box activities, and it deserves to be a mainstay for all entranced by the visuals of hip-hop. But don't just take my word for it -- read an interview with the man who inked the book's pages himself, and draw your own conclusions. - Interview by Alex Koenig What is the chief inspiration behind the Rap Coloring Book? To get money and f** hoes, is the inspiration. Or, I don't know. Probably not really. Definitely not really. I'm pretty poor and I'm married so I do neither of those. Unless you're calling my wife a ho, in which case I hate you and this interview is over. Who are your favorite rappers to draw? I like drawing dudebros that have interesting faces. Bun has a great face when he turns it extra mean. Kanye does too. Drake. 2Pac. Common. RiFF RAFF. Guys like that. If there's something neat going on there, then it's fun to draw. I wish there was a rapper that had a gigantic scar across his face or something. I never feel like I'm able to draw enough dudes with scar faces. I remember when I was a kid I was extra disappointed when I saw that Scarface didn't actually have a scar face. How did Bun B get involved in co-signing the project? I mean, I guess I don't know. Bun is, to be sure, a bonafide rap legend. I'm just a guy that happens to know how to draw and likes to make Blood In Blood Out jokes on Twitter. I've been writing about rap for five or so years now, so he and I had spoken a few times for this interview or that, so that's how he knew me. I guess he didn't hate the way I wrote or I guess maybe he just wanted to befriend a lower middle cla** Mexican. He called and asked and I was able to stop crying long enough to say yes. I don't know. And I didn't bother to ask. I'm saying, if Tim Duncan calls me tomorrow and asks me to go to shootaround with him, I'm not gonna question him about where he got my number, you know what I mean. I'm just f**ing going to the gym. Many rappers have shared your work on Twitter. Which MCs surprised you the most when you saw that they tweeted your drawings? I was probably most surprised when Big Boi tweeted this silly Outkast page that we did. I'd spent a few weeks trying to reach him to see if he wanted to be in the actual book and never heard back, so I figured he wasn't too much interested in what we had going on. (Everybody whose face is in the book, we got written permission from them to do so. That's the first time that's ever happened with a book like this.) I don't remember exactly, but I'm almost certain that when I saw him tweet the link I ax-kicked a restaurant table in half. Oh, also, when Danny Brown used his page as his Twitter avatar, that's when I was like "Oh f**." He was the second or third picture I drew. After that, I tried to get EVERY rapper to see their page, haha. Did you aspire to or expect to receive a book deal? Yes. That was always the end goal. I felt a discernible amount of pressure when we started the tumblr –it's no small feat to secure a book deal from a proper publisher—but I don't think I was ever not excited to be pursuing it. I remember when I got the phone call I was all, "Oh, you want to turn it into a book?" trying to be all cool and sh**. As soon as we got off the phone I did f**ing backflips down the block. I felt like that part in Ferris Bueller's Day Off where he starts singing at the parade. Like, I really wanted that sh** to happen to me at that exact moment. What's the target audience for the book? Are you hoping that children will color in Tyler and Earl instead of Ernie and Bert? Mostly, it's a book for rap fans. Like, there are a bunch of neat little secret things in there for rap nerds, but we worked to make it as ma** consumable as possible. So, I mean, it's not geared towards kids, but if it ends up in their hands, it'll be fine. There aren't, like, curse words or naked women or d** or anything like that in there. That's all going in the other coloring book Bun and I are doing. It's called Curse Words and Naked Women and Drugs. That's the one that's aimed at kids. Have you thought about drawing artists outside of the rap arena, like within rock or pop? If so, who would you like to draw? Yeah. I've done a few private pages for people of non-rap dudes. And I did a Chong Li page (the bad guy from Bloodsport) for myself. Oh, and I did a Miklo Velka page (the main star of Blood In Blood Out) for myself and a few of my friends too. There are still about a billion ideas for rap pages though, and that's mostly what I listen to, and I don't know if you know this or Bun actually has this rap career he's working on. I'm with whatever though. If you give me money, I'll draw a bo*er or whatever it is you wanna color. You recently started drawing 8-bit versions of rappers. How did that idea come about? I was at home bored + trying to not take care of my children + I thought it'd be funny to see what rappers looked like as 8-bit characters + I couldn't really find any on the Internet so I just started dicking around in Illustrator until I figured it out. It was just a fun thing to work on. Also, that old regular Nintendo was the first gaming system I had, so I've always carried those images around with me. It was neat to see rap and Nintendo coming together like God intended. Do you plan to experiment with other forms of hip-hop art in the future? Sure. Art is awesome. People like it. And rap is awesome. People like that too. Ever since the rap coloring tumblr got popular I've been lucky enough to have people and publications and whatnot approach me and ask me to make this or that for them. It's cool. I'm always very proud and surprised that people don't hate everything I do or say. Your coloring book comes out the same day as Drake's new album, Nothing Is The Same. Coincidence, or do you guys have a friendly sales competition going on? Drake and I are true best friends. I called him before we announced our release and was like, "Drake's Cakes" –that's what I call him—I was like, "Drake's Cakes, our book is coming out the same day as your album." He was like, "Praise be to the Illuminati." I have no doubt that September 17th will go down as the most important day in the history of history. R. Kelly will sing songs about it. President Obama will deliver a speech to the world about it. And people will write books about it. In fact, I already have. It's called Bun B's Rap Coloring and Activity Book. Order it on Amazon today. If you order it then I love you and if you don't then I hate you.