Jason Shelowitz and his brother run the twitter account @TheRapQuotes where they serve up a regular dose of “Rap Quotes to keep you inspired.”
A few weeks ago Jason got an idea:
I was working in my home studio listening to Big L’s first album Lifestylez Ov Da Poor and Dangerous when I caught myself rapping along to one of the songs, with the lyric “…on 139 and Lenox Ave. there’s a big park, and if you soft don’t go through it when it gets dark…” That’s when I paused and thought that it would be cool if that corner was marked in some way with that lyric so everyone who walked by was aware of its part in New York City’s hip hop history.
Jason went to work and before too long he had 30 verses from 30 different rappers ready to go. From Mt. Vernon to Long Island and all points in between it became clear that the streets of New York played an active role in the lyrics of its rappers.
Shelowitz “appropriated New York City’s standard (read: boring) visual language for municipal graphics” he used “red and white as my only colors hoping that the signs would blend into their environment just enough to make them a surprising find for the most aware pedestrians.” He believed it “would be more fun for them to be discovered among the existing visual clutter than to scream out at everyone”
Brilliant stuff. You can support the Rap Quotes project by purchasing this nifty t-shirt.
h/t Good