Jim Cheung mixes "All-New, All-Different Avengers" with The Roots' Illadelph Halflife
Mike Del Mundo mixes “Amazing Spider-Man” with A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders
Keron Grant mixes “All-New Wolverine” with DMX’s Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood
Sanford Greene mixes “All-New Hawkeye” with Pete Rock & CL Smooth’s Mecca and the Soul Brother
Damion Scott mixes “Uncanny Inhumans” with Outkast’s Aquemini
Jason Pearson mixes “Uncanny Avengers” with Public Enemy’s Yo! Bum Rush the Show
Natacha Bustos mixes “Spider-Woman” with Big Pun’s Capital Punishment
Gyimah Gariba mixes “Spidey” with Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter IV
Mike Del Mundo mixes “Squadron Supreme” with Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang
Phil Noto mixes “Squirrel Girl” with Tyler the Creator’s Wolf
Tradd Moore mixes “Star-Lord” with 100s Ivry
Adi Granov mixes “Spider-Man” with Nas’ Illmatic
Afu Chan mixes “Spider-Man 2099” with the GOOD Music compilation & Kanye West’s Cruel Summer
Mahmud Asrar mixes “Captain America” with A$AP Rocky’s Long. Live. A$AP.
Eric Canete mixes “Nova” with J. Cole’s Born Sinner
Jenny Frison mixes “Ms. Marvel” with Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Shawn Crystal mixes “Guardians of the Galaxy” with The Pharcyde’s Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde
Theotis Jones mixes “Hercules” with Lil B’s Black Flame
Juan Doe mixes “Howard the Duck” with Ol Dirty Bastard’s Return to the 36 Chambers
Brian Stelfreeze mixes “Iron Man” with 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin
Mike Deodato mixes “Mighty Thor” with Madvillain’s Madvillainy
Sanford Greene mixes “Extraordinary X-Men” with De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising
Mike Choi mixes “Drax” with Kid Cudi’s Man on the Moon II
Dave Johnson mixes “Spider-Man/Deadpool” with Eric B. & Rakim’s Paid in Full
Juan Doe mixes “Dr. Strange” with Dr. Dre’s The Chronic
Denys Cowan & Bill Sienkewicz mix “Contest of Champions” with GZA’s Liquid Swords
Jim Cheung mixes “All-New, All-Different Avengers” with The Roots’ Illadelph Halflife
Mark Brooks mixes “Ant-Man” with Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die
Hip Hop has always a relationship with comic books. Graffiti artists would (and still) often spray paint their work in big, bold and colorful letters accompanied by cartoonish figures. Rappers have even used comic book characters as their alter ego, see Ghostface Killah and Ironman.
Now Marvel has been running a month-long variant cover themes with classic hip hop albums. According to Comic Book Resources, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso said the following:
This variant program is an opportunity to show not only my love for hip-hop culture, but also the love of so many in Marvel’s freelance community. Hip-hop inspires a lot of us. It is the musical score for a lot of our lives. This comes from a place of love.
The mixing of these two cultures has been beneficial for everyone involved. Hopefully this become an ongoing theme because there are a lot of classic album covers that were missed. Just imagine the X-Men on the cover of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly .
