Clockwise from Left: The Diplomats – Dipset Anthem; Juvenile – 400 Degreez; Megan Thee Stallion – Hot Girl
“Crack markets had three primary impacts on young black males: an increased probability of being murdered, an increased risk of incarceration, and a potential source of income,”
The White/Black Educational Gap, Stalled Progress, and the Long Term Consequences of the Emergence of Crack Cocaine Markets (link)
William N. Evans, Craig Garthwaite & Timothy J. Moore
It all started with “Dipset Anthem”… If rec league sports adopted walk-on music, this Heatmakerz-produced stalwart by The Diplomats (Dipset) would be my definitive choice, soundtracking that triumphant stride onto the court.
Dipset’s cultural impact remains undeniable. They didn’t just shape hip-hop music; they redefined a fashion moment, notably taking the color pink—once synonymous with Reagan-era Wall Street prep and exclusive country clubs—and reappropriating it for the aspirational streetwear aesthetic of Uptown Harlem. It was a bold statement about status, identity, and flipping establishment symbols.
This piece details a conceptual album cover redesign for “Dipset Anthem,” envisioned as a personal design challenge. Unlike other works in this series, which perhaps explored singular themes without achieving the same depth of deliberate layering present here (though still valuable as references for future work), this “Dipset Anthem” concept received a more rigorous, multi-layered conceptualization.
The Design Process & Conceptual Layers:
The foundational layer draws inspiration from the Cold War era. While I only witnessed its latter stages, lacking the full real-time context, the visual language of that period offered potent source material. The Cold War’s backdrop—its competing ideologies, pervasive propaganda, and shadowed geopolitical plays—offers a resonant parallel to the underground economies and alternative power structures embodied by the hustler figure. Specifically, I referenced propaganda posters from Mao-era China and Soviet space program advertisements. These artifacts blend bold graphic design elements—solid strokes, halftone patterns—with a palpable sense of futuristic optimism and promised progress, inherent in state-sponsored propaganda.
Central to the composition is an image of Nicky Barnes, the infamous Harlem drug kingpin, flanked by two women. His inclusion is a direct nod to Harlem’s history and the complex glorification of the hustler archetype within hip-hop culture. Placing Barnes as the focal point serves to interrogate how nostalgia often simplifies complex historical figures, casting them as unambiguous heroes or villains while ignoring nuanced realities. He embodies both the “enemy of the people” narrative often pushed by authorities, and the potent economic forces operating beneath the surface of geopolitical maneuvering and official narratives.
As the cited research highlights (“The White/Black Educational Gap…”), the emergence of crack cocaine markets had devastating, multifaceted consequences for young Black men—increased mortality, mass incarceration, alongside the grim allure of illicit income—complexities often obscured by simplified portrayals.
The design explores how intricate webs of international relations and economic interests (partly fueled by Cold War dynamics) contributed to the drug trade’s expansion, masking its deep connections to systemic inequalities and global power structures.
Contrasting the vintage elements, the design incorporates symbols of contemporary aspiration: luxury goods and status symbols. These act as the modern “bait” for hustlers, offering an illusion of success and respect. A bubblegum pink Lamborghini, a direct visual echo of Killa Cam (Cam’ron)’s iconic style, features prominently. This is paired with a dual reference to Virgil Abloh’s design philosophy: nodding directly to Off White; his time at Louis Vuitton, and to his roots with his Pyrex Vision brand (itself referencing drug culture and hustling) and his well-documented fascination with bootleg culture.
This reference feels pertinent given Abloh’s broader project of bridging streetwear authenticity with high-fashion luxury, often utilizing sampling and recontextualization in his own design methods, mirroring hip-hop’s own creative ethos.
I honor this legacy with an Off-White-inspired take on the “Dipset Anthem” title treatment, incorporating elements like a Cyrillic “I” and iconic vertical quotation marks, tying the modern luxury symbols back to the Cold War aesthetic roots.
Ultimately, the goal from the outset was to bridge vintage and modern elements conceptually, mirroring the process of sampling in music production.
Here, the visual ‘samples’ included sampling the optimistic aesthetic of Soviet-era posters, sampling the complex iconography of Nicky Barnes, and sampling Virgil Abloh’s distinct design language. These elements were then ‘flipped’ or juxtaposed—Soviet hopefulness against the harsh realities of the crack era, historical narratives against contemporary luxury symbols like the pink Lambo—aiming to recontextualize these disparate sources into something new and layered with meaning, much like a producer cooking up in the lab.
