Black is Beautiful 2020 – Cey Adams

It’s been a while. I took a break from doing Black Is Beautiful last year. I was taking care of my brand new baby girl and now I’m back at it. Not sure if I can knock out one for each day of the month but I’m definitely going to do do some new ones and a poster.

Lets talk about Cey! 

We talk about giving people their flowers while they’re still here and I want to give Cey some shine. If you didn’t grow up into graf as a kid, lemme introduce you. Cey Adams started off as a graf writer in the mid 70s as Graffiti was exploding throughout the boroughs of NYC. Born in 1968 this cat had been painting for many years when I saw him in “Style Wars”. Cey had and still has incredible letter structure that instantly caught my eye.

He went on to be a part of that merging of Graf with gallery exhibitions in Manhattan which I’m sure he caught flack for from some purists. Then he became one of the architects of what we know as design for hip hop producing graphics, album covers, merchandise, and logos for many of the best hip hop and r&b stars of the 80’s, 90’s, and beyond. He co-founded a design company called “The Drawing Board” which produced a ton of Def Jam’s design work! Today this cat is still making art with a mixture of beautiful texture and some classic logos.

As a 20 something while interning for design powerhouse Morning Breath Inc in Brooklyn I really got put on to Cey’s work as Doug and Jason showed me some incredible work he’d done that I didn’t even know he did. I saw originals that just blew my mind. For ever Cey will be one of my favorite artists/designers and I would love those celebrating Black history to not only include this man in the books, but to give him his props now. Much respect Cey if you’re reading this!

Sources: Style Wars, Def Jam, CeyAdams.com, Wikipedia, Noisey

Is this your first time seeing me do Black History Month art? Please check out a few of these!
Ruth Carter– Costume Designer
Betty Reid Soskin– Park Ranger