The music that SZA, Metro Boomin and 21 Savage have contributed this year is set in stone as some of the best of 2017 on our best song and best album lists – but now the artists are about to get literal busts. In a collaboration between Spotify’s RapCaviar playlist and the Brooklyn museum, all three entertainers have larger than life sculptures set to be put on display starting on December 8.
It’s a part of RapCaviar’s new initiative to “pay tribute to rising stars in unique artistic formats,” as the organization said in a statement. The three were chosen using a “combination of data and curation” – AKA a lot of people bumped their tracks on Spotify. The busts took up to 15 days to make, a process that was chronicled in a Doctor X-curated video that was also released today. Pharell Williams narrates the process, giving the three artists the venerable tone that they deserve.
Each artist’s rendering has aspects of it that pay tribute to both their 2017 work and classic art. There’s young Metro’s flute which he sampled to intoxicate everyone on “Mask Off,” SZA’s signature “Love Galore” butterflies, and the eight Ms around 21 Savage, signifying the $8,000,000 he wants in his “Bank Account.”
As much as hip-hop purists complain about young trap rappers, Savage and Metro have a significant one-up when it comes to standards of “real art” – they’re in a museum exhibit. Similarly, “SZA’s” emergence with CTRL has been one of the highlights of 2017, and she’s getting recognition fit for royalty.
