I can’t say I’ve ever been drawn to the allure (can it even be typified as allure?) of the “Cash Money” aesthetic. Personally, there’s nothing about some tough looking mug displaying his/her wealth (or casting the illusion of) in ostentatious amounts for an album cover that makes me curious as to what sort of music is on the album. I don’t know who buys into that sort of imagery, but I imagine that they would probably be open to buying Tony Robbins tapes, too. This image was forwarded to me this morning with the following note:
You have:
1. bling,
2. bling on bears,
3. bears smoking blunts,
4. bears in smoking jackets,
5. a tray of salmon, strawberries, grapes, and nuts,
6. Cristal,
7. Bears drinking from huge goblets,
8. head back, eyes almost closed, imposing stare,
9. the name “Big Bear” painted in honey, and
10. all of this takes place in a cave.I dare you to put any Cash Money artist to this task.
So, I did some research, seems this particular image was generated in the Nineteen-Hundred and Nineties- all the way back to the archaic times of Cypress Hill and the Ghetto Boyz-The album that this art was created for was published for distribution in 1998! Here I was scared that this was contemporary album art, fffwwwwooooo! Small wonder we don’t find ourselves inundated with Big Bear merchandise today, huh? He was obviously a true playah. Maybe this is a case of Album Art Killed the Hip-Hop Star? Who knows? Even by 90’s standards this is lame, it’s “cute” and it goes without saying that “cute” goes with Hip-Hop like….Bears and Cristal!! Bears in smoking jackets? How in THE hell did this schmuk manage to keep a straight face during the shoot? Or was he supremely pissed off, like “I’m so gonna fire my manager for this, what stupid jackass thought this’d be cool?” The kicker is the album came with an “Explicit Lyrics” warning. Ha Ha, Ho Ho, it is to laugh! “Big Bear gonna getchu! Raaar! I’m tough all up in my cave with my grizzly boyz and our silk jackets, Raaar!” And the title, “Doin Thangs”? How about, after ten years, “Doin No-thangs!”?
Here’s Five Titles that could’ve been better and I’m not even trying:
1.”Smartah than tha average Bear!”
2.”In da Cave!”
3.”Fuzzy Wuzzy!”
4.”Hey, BooBoo!”
5.”Back from the Woods!”
I have got myself laughing so hard about this right now, that I can’t hardly breathe, I gotta give this up for now. Comments are welcome. Can you think of a better title for this album?
Close to a year ago, I was commissioned to make a ceramic strawberry 
