World renowned graffiti artist Futura has showcased his artwork alongside Hip-Hop’s favorite artist of the moment, the late Jean-Michel Basquiat, and has now aligned himself with Hip-Hop’s favorite cognac, Hennessy V.S. The street-art legend has designed a limited edition bottles for the brand, that is adorned with his signature bold and forward-thinking use of color and lines.
With only 200,000 individually numbered bottles released in the U.S., many art collectors and art fans have been showing up and enduring long lines in order to get their bottle autographed by the art legend.
Futura’s latest stop was in Washington D.C., where he hosted a private Hennessy V.S brunch at the trendy Smith Commons. The eccentric artist recently spoke with MTV’s RapFix about his love for all things Hip-Hop and revealed a few of his favorite artists.
“Obviously, we gotta go back some 30 years to the early 80’s when that culture in New York was sort of coming together and we were discovering, you know, the elements of hip hop,” said Futura.
“But, in fact, I predate the words “hip-hop,” it hadn’t been labeled yet, so I’m not as connected to it now as I obviously was back in the day. I like Kendrick Lamar, Dre… I’m still into it. I heard Snoop’s a lion now, he’s not a dog anymore, so you know, everybody’s moving forward doing things, you know, me too. And I do love some Jay-Z. So what can I say? I’m still connected emotionally to hip hop. But not as much of a fanatic about it when I was younger.”
From Swizz Beatz to Jay-Z, many rappers have taken to mentioning their art collections in their music. Futura believes that in the next year or so, street art will explode even more in Hip-Hop.
“I did hear Jay sing about Basquiat which I thought was pretty interesting. Yeah, I mean, I see this decade, we’re actually approaching 2013, so we’re still pretty early in this decade, so I give it another three years to see a lot of these influential individuals in that field maybe even investing in our work. You know it’s one thing to talk about ‘em, it’s another thing to actually buy them and collect them, so let’s see what happens.”
Futura’s limited edition Hennessy bottle retails for $34.