Tetsuo & Youth

Lupe Fiasco painted the cover of Tetsuo & Youth himself. The abstract canvas sets a heavy diagonal band of purple and white across fields of red, pink and white, with thick brushwork and a small raised shape pressed into the red at the lower left. It sits on a white border like a photograph of a painting hanging in a gallery.

The album had been delayed for years by disputes with Atlantic, and Lupe treated it as an art object in every sense. The title borrows from Tetsuo Shima, the troubled teenager in Akira, and the record moves through the seasons, with instrumental interludes named Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring dividing its long, dense songs.

Grantland noted that Lupe painted the artwork, a rare case of a major-label rapper handing over his own canvas as the cover. Released on 20 January 2015 through 1st & 15th and Atlantic, the album was his last for the label and was welcomed as a return to form, with the painting standing for its ambition.