Contemporary Painting turned Hip Hop

Painting has long been a part of in Hip Hop, with Graffiti forming one of its foundational elements alongside MCing, DJing, and Breaking. Spray cans and markers were the primary tools for expression, authorship and territory. In recent decades, contemporary artists have carried a dialogue with the genre outside of the concrete jungle, through collaboration, performance and mass circulation of product. With Kanye West's Graduation album cover by Takashi Murakami (2007), Jay-Z’s Picasso Baby music video with Marina Abramović at Pace Gallery (2013), Drx Romanelli, Spencer Russell Lewis and Alchemist’s installation and mixtape A Doctor, Painter & An Alchemist Walk Into a Bar (2020), and touring exhibition Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys (2024–26), painting continues to function prominently as another lyric or sample used in Hip Hop vocabulary.

Museum & Co. recognizes Hip Hop as a living visual / anecdotal archive, following as contemporary painting moves through microphone, merchandise and institution.

Within this lineage, commissioned works for 21 Savage, Nas, Tupac Shakur and Kendrick Lamar operate as articulate visual systems that carry meaning, memory, language and regional symbolism, each uniquely translated for the artist and music being portrayed. Seen in the broader ecosystem of a Hip Hop artist’s practice today, painting represents one of many seeds planted across culture. As cultural objects, these works allow Hip Hop to be experienced through points of entry beyond headphones and speakers.

21 Savage - Americana Reconsidered

Andrew Agutos. Airbrush Tee / Knife Game / Bootleg Flag for 21 Savage american dream album merch, 2024. Acrylic on linen.
Commissioned by 21 Savage / Universal Music Group.
Circulated via global merchandise and private acquisition. 

The triptych commissioned for 21 Savage engages directly with American iconography: the flag, the Statue of Liberty and the Constitution, as sites of question and contest. With 21 Savage's position as a British-born immigrant navigating Atlanta's streets, the american dream imagery is presented deliberately with a sense of tension, exposing the misconceptions within ideals of freedom, citizenship and human rights. Rather than celebrating patriotic narratives, the works examine how the meaning of symbols and icons can be inherited, distorted or eroded across generations.

Nas - 30 Years

Andrew Agutos. NY State of Mind / Forty Side of Vernon / Most Dangerous MC for Nas 30 years of illmatic anniversary merch collection, 2024. Acrylic on canvas.
Commissioned by Nasir Jones / Universal Music Group.
NY State of Mind has been acquired by The Hip Hop Museum, The Bronx, New York.

Nas was just 20 years old when he release illmatic in 1994, emerging from Queensbridge with a pen that could masterfully articulate the projects using complex storytelling, lyricism and social commentary. The paintings pay homage to the album's 30th anniversary with a focus on Queensbridge Housing Projects, the formative New York City structure that enabled Nas his voice. Street-life symbology is translated into painterly form. With NY State of Mind entering the permanent collection of The Hip Hop Museum in The Bronx (reopening Fall 2026—a renovation project closely tied to Nas and Mass Appeal), these symbolic references are canonized from cityscape origin to institutional preservation in both audio and visual format.

Tupac Shakur - Poetry as Power

Andrew Agutos. And 2morrow / Please Wake Me When I'm Free / If I Fail for Tupac Poetry Month collection, 2025. Acrylic on linen.
Commissioned by The Shakur Estate / Universal Music Group.
And 2morrow has been acquired by The Hip Hop Museum, The Bronx, New York.

Commissioned for Poetry Month, these paintings reinterpret three poems by Tupac Shakur: And 2morrow, Untitled (Please Wake Me When I’m Free), and If I Fail, as well as two additional works requested by The Shakur Estate. The compositions take account of Tupac's philosophical and activist roots, which was made intentionally clear years later when he used the pseudonym Makaveli, a play on the name of Italian diplomat-philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli. The paintings mirror the tension and hope of his writing, highlighting his role as poet in the fight against systemic injustice. The And 2morrow painting conveys the multifaceted genius of Tupac Shakur most dynamically; it was selected by The Shakur Estate for a garment and lithograph, and acquired by The Hip Hop Museum for further preservation in an archival setting.

Andrew Agutos. Tupac Amaru Shakur / The Rose That Grew From Concrete studies for Tupac Poetry Month collection, 2025. Acrylic on canvas.
Commissioned by The Shakur Estate / Universal Music Group.
Unpublished alternate studies.

Kendrick Lamar - Interstate 10

Andrew Agutos. Gloria Tire Service / Grand National Auto Repair / Shop Calendar for Kendrick Lamar Grand National Tour Latin America merch collection, 2025. Acrylic on canvas.
Commissioned by pgLang / Universal Music Group.
Mexico City, Bogotá, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago.

California car culture signifies Lamar's GNX era—aesthetically familiar to Los Angeles and emblematic of the West Coast. Beneath the iconography of the 1987 Buick Grand National, California highways and car shop signage exists the narrative of attainment: finding success, celebrating it and continually having to prove why it is deserved. This sentiment found in Lamar's music resonates internationally. For the Latin American leg of The Grand National Tour, these paintings were adapted for tour merchandise across Mexico City, Bogotá, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Santiago, exemplifying the transcendent capacity of Hip Hop, and how visual art functions as a complement.