Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor

The cover of Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor shows the Chicago rapper floating in mid-air, surrounded by the objects of his daily life: a Banksy postcard, a Nintendo DS, a sketchbook, a copy of the Qur'an and a toy robot. It was designed by Chuck Anderson, the Chicago artist behind the studio No Pattern, working with Righteous Kung Fu. Its bright, sliced light and sense of motion belong to the digital illustration style that Anderson was known for in the mid-2000s.

The starting point was a skateboard deck Lupe owned, and the objects were chosen because they were things he carried around every day. Together they make a self-portrait in possessions: faith, art, games and street culture held in the same orbit. Looking back for the album's tenth anniversary, Lupe tied the light effects to the work of the Japanese manga artist Katsuhiro Otomo, the creator of Akira. The liner notes extend the idea with gentle parody, replacing liquor with milk and cookies in a scene of drug dealing and swapping guns for books in a drive-by.

The cover marked Lupe as something new in mainstream rap, a skater and anime fan on a major label, and its blend of graphic design and photography anticipated the look of much blog-era hip-hop. Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor was released on 19 September 2006.