Because of Robert Del Naja's influence on the artwork of Massive Attack and his rich history in the Bristol Underground scene/ graffiti. I've chosen to examine his character in more depth...
Robert Del Naja
Origin: Bristol, England
Genres: Trip hop, electronica
Years active: 1988-present
Associated acts: Massive Attack, The Wild Bunch, Unkle
Robert Del Naja's music has been associated with the Bristol Sound.
Robert has said of the Bristol Scene "We all grew up listening to punk music and funk stuff and those attitudes sort of snuck into our music. That sort of brought people from different circles together and maybe it wasn't as 'cultural melting pot' as it all sounds but because Bristol is quite a small place, it becomes a lot more focused then."
(Robert "3D" Del Naja - Left)
3D and the art of Massive Attack
Massive Attack have sold 11 million records since their first album Blue Lines was released in 1991. All the while 3D has been making and collecting images, which he has now compiled and designed using pieces saved from a personal archive. As 3D made the transition from graffiti artist with his Wild Bunch graffiti crew to Massive Attack member he turned his hand to record art for the band, while continuing to produce other paste-ups and paintings. It’s all here in the book alongside his many collaborations with the likes of Nick Knight, Tom Hingston, Judy Blame and Michael Nash Associates.
There are unseen photographs documenting 3D’s ongoing collaboration with United Visual Artists, and examples of his recent work with filmmaker Adam Curtis. The 400-page book features an in-depth interview with the artist, where he describes the development of the band’s artwork and record sleeve designs, as well as offering insights into his processes, and inspirations. These are disparate and many, ranging from magazine culture and comics, including New York’s hip-hop scene and Japanese graphics, and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s cultural juxtapositions, to Warhol’s pop imagery, politics and punk. To celebrate the release of the book, The Vinyl Factory will also release an additional, limited edition screen-printed box set with an exclusive print by Del Naja. The hardback book features alternative cover artwork, and a vinyl 12-inch of a previously unreleased track with an etched B-side. The signed collector’s edition will be limited to 350 copies, priced at ￡350 each.
http://www.designersjournal.net/jottings/designheroes/heroes-tom-hingston
Who’d have thought that a Neville Brody exhibition at the V&A could have changed the life of one designer so profoundly. But that’s exactly what happened to a 15 year old Tom Hingston writes Martin Maher. Instead of taking his A Levels he decided to start a graphic design course instead and went on to study at Central St Martins. The Neville Brody connection didn’t end there either. Tom’s tutor Jon Wozencroft worked with Neville Brody and encouraged Tom to go along for an interview for a junior designer position at Neville’s studio. After a nerve-wracking interview with his hero he got the job and an amazing design career began.
Whilst working at Neville Brody’s studio Tom worked on everything from editorial work through to corporate identities, film titles and even the original Sony PlayStation. Neville encouraged his staff to experiment even if it meant them making mistakes and Tom learnt a great deal whilst there. After a couple of years Tom received many requests from friends needing design work for projects they were setting up. He designed flyers and posters for The Blue Note which was home to Talvin Singh and James Lavelle’s club nights. The workload increased and he finally decided to take the plunge and go freelance.
Although like any designer starting out on his own he struggled with all the usual problems at first but he eventually found his feet. It helped that one of his first high-profile clients was Massive Attack. His first of many projects with them was their third album ‘Mezzanine’. Tom worked closely with band member 3D, himself a visual artist who had co-designed all the band’s previous artwork. The third artist in the mix was renowned photographer Nick Knight who Tom has formed a formidable creative partnership with throughout the years
Street Art inspiration for Massive Attack
Jean-Michel Basquiat: the street-art inspiration for Massive Attack. Before he died in 1988, Basquiat made the great leap from graffiti to major galleries. Robert '3D' Del Naja of Massive Attack recalls how the raw beauty of the artist's work inspired his own paintings.
This year marked 25 years since Jean-Michel Basquiat died of a heroin overdose at the age of 27. He was an Afro-Puerto Rican kid from Brooklyn who dropped out of school at 15 and ran away from home. He slept on park benches in 70s New York, starting out as a street artist tagging as "Samo" and went on to become, for me, the greatest artist of his generation and one of my biggest influences. Basquiat was one of the first to bring graffiti into the mainstream. The rise – and commodification – of modern street art would not have happened without him. For better or worse, he kicked the art world into paying attention.
INTERVIEW - ROBERT '3D' DEL NAJA OF MASSIVE ATTACK
"I first discovered him through an unlikely source – the music of the Clash. They introduced me, as a young punk, to reggae and dub music. In 1981, tracks such as Radio Clash and The Magnificent Seven also put me on to rap and funk. This new direction was influenced by hip-hop acts such as the Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash. When the Clash's Combat Rock was released in 1982, it featured Overpowered by Funk, a collaboration with a prolific NY graffiti artist called Futura 2000 on vocals, who later namechecked Basquiat in his records. That was the year I started buying electro 12in records and met Nellee Hopper and Miles Johnson through Grant Marshall, who worked in Revolver Records, Bristol. We all shared the same interests in scratching, mixing, breakdancing and graffiti art; the Wild Bunch – our pre- Massive Attack sound system days – was born.
It was the New York scene that got me hooked on hip-hop and alternative electro. By 1980, Basquiat, Futura 2000 and Fab 5 Freddy had co-curated the graffiti-related art show Beyond Words at the Mudd club, which contained their own work along with Rammellzee, Keith Haring and others. That same year, Basquiat had become friends with Andy Warhol and his work was gaining serious recognition. He created epic, powerful works such as The History of Black People and The Dutch Settlers.
In Bristol, we flocked to see the seminal hip-hop film Wild Style at the Stokes Croft art centre. In those days, pre-internet and before the mass exposure of hip-hop, you had to dig deep to find tunes and graffiti art. It made everything you did find all the more precious. There would be a little bit on the radio, a magazine, then a tantalising snippet on video maybe. And the name Basquiat kept popping up.
New York – like Kingston, Jamaica, before it – began to shape and influence the subculture of Bristol and London. Before then, British youth culture in the 80s had been tribal and divided. Hip-hop changed that. It broke down class and race divisions in a way punk and the ska movement had tried and failed to do. The Wild Bunch spent three years putting on warehouse parties and underground jams, using graffiti art to spread the word. The parties attracted a cross-section of the young population: middle class and working class, black and white.
Going to Japan with the Wild Bunch in 1986 presented an unexpected opportunity to see Basquiat paintings. Some of his work was part of a collection in a big Tokyo gallery, including some of his recent collaborations with Warhol. The work had a huge impact on me. I had seen primitivism in art before, but Basquiat stopped me dead. He painted in a raw and confrontational way that was beautiful and effortless; he abused the canvas with chaotic composition and intense primary colours. It wasn't just his imagery but the juxtaposed cultural references: media saturation, brand communication, power, poverty, African history, colonialisation and exploitation. Everything was labelled for consumers and the words seemed part manifesto and part hit list. It was a slap in the face.
Soon after we returned from Japan, the Wild Bunch split up and I knew I had to do something new with art and music. I had been painting for three years, and been arrested a couple of times, so the game was up for me with graffiti, because the police knew who I was. But the graffiti scene itself had become a bit predictable and uninteresting; the Subway Art book was almost like a manual for American-style graffiti art. It gave major exposure, but suddenly everyone was literally on the same page. Everyone was tagging and it had become more a fashion thing than a meaningful art form in which you went out at night and took risks to spread a message.
We formed Massive Attack in 1988 and the influence of Basquiat was always there. He made the possibilities seem limitless. His style was not something you could copy, although you could try to steal a bit. I started to paint with brushes instead of aerosols, to work with more spontaneity and boldness. Basquiat's Warhol collaboration reopened my eyes to pop art and I moved away from graffiti as calligraphy, to see if I could paint in a more symbolic way. I started to use stencils as a method of printing Margaret Thatcher and Mike Tyson, and other media icons of the time. The repetition of cultural and industrial motifs determined the way I created record sleeves for the band.
Basquiat's influence still filters into the visuals that I create for the Massive Attack live shows, using abstract sloganeering, social and political data mining.
Back then, watching Basquiat cross over into the gallery world, the high art crowd, was fascinating. The graffiti artists would question the authenticity of his stuff – when the notion of selling out still mattered – while the art world questioned his right to be there. As an artist, he was completely intriguing, but as a person he must have been having a major identity crisis. His commercial power was inevitable as his talent transcended his street-art origins. There was always a fight about authenticity and the idea that graffiti was transient, that it belonged on the street and should never cross over to the galleries. That was never going to last because people always want a piece of something that is exotic and a piece of a world that they are not a part of.
The New York scene in the 80s didn't initially translate to the first wave of graffiti artists in the UK and Europe, but in the past 15 years it has taken off. When something has a visual identity that is so strong and has so many great ways of conveying the politics and social issues with humour and surrealism, it does well. Basquiat's ability to sell art for big bucks while he was alive in a very white art scene was amazing because that world can seem closed. In 2012, for the second year running, Basquiat was the most coveted contemporary artist at auction, with £68m in overall sales. Jay Z and Kanye both namecheck him on their most recent albums, and lyrics boast of pieces that they own.
Basquiat's life was sadly too short. He changed my way of painting and thinking about art and I'd like to believe that his style and vision inspired the reactionary urban art movement of this generation. The question over whether street art should remain a public art form became moot for me: I never had enough money to buy a Basquiat work. But the success of Soul II Soul means that Nellee Hooper has a wicked Basquiat collection hanging on his studio walls. When we recorded Protection together, I got to gaze at them every day. That was truly inspiring."
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