So this is no longer a WIP, even though I still can't seem to pin down what I wanted from this little detour. This is Questlove from the Roots (now on tour with Living Colour/Yohimbe Bros guitarist, Vernon Reid, who also has a couple of renditions here in my gallery).

People forget that before sample became synonymous with hip-hop (it's earliest developments were in symphonic music and early art-rock experimenters like Holger Czukay, Brian Eno/Robert Fripp, and David Byrne), that most early hip hop came under the direction fo the Sugarhill Label, which had one of the best housebands on earth, made up of Skip MacDonald, Keith LeBlanc, and Doug Wimbish, who since have continued in various guises to play with folks like Jeffe Beck, Dpeche Mode, Joe Satriani, the ROlling Stones, Little Axe, Bim Sherman, NIN and Seal among others. In my opinion, the Roots are the heirs to that legacy of uncanny, solid performance aesthetic. Questlove in particular, really impressed me after his side project with piano wunderkind Uri Caine and jazz bassist Christian McBride.

pencil, acrylic ink, gouache, pigma micron, acrylic paint + digital