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Over the past several weeks, Kanye West has become fond posting himself as a cartoon in the style of popular Adult Swim show Rick And Morty on his reactivated Twitter. It turns out all of those illustrations have been the work of one artist, Nikki Nebula, who posts her creations to Instagram under the profile name @nicole_nebula. In a recent interview with Complex, the 22-year-old illustrator shared her fondness for both the show and Kanye and explained how her work ended up replacing inflammatory political statements in adorning Kanye West’s social media feeds.
While initially Kanye’s posts of himself as a Rick And Morty character were thought to come from the show’s creators themselves, a birthday request from Kanye’s wife Kim Kardashian revealed that the caricatures were the work of a fan artist. Complex eventually found the Instagram page uploading the pics and uncovered Nikki Nebula’s connection to Kanye. As it happens, Nikki is the sister of YesJulz, the social media star and event organizer who’s become closely tied with Kanye herself — most especially to his recent philanthropical efforts in Uganda, although she’s been spotted at a number of his GOOD Music album release events and has a number of ongoing projects unrelated to West, including an internet radio show. Julz and Kanye also share a gift for causing controversy online.
Nikki says that she’s only been working with digital art for a few months, but Kanye liked her work and now they’ve got an arrangement where she sends him updates whenever she finishes one — usually one a day. While she kept the exact nature of the arrangement under wraps during the interview, she says “I’ve pretty much got the hang of it and can conceptualize and execute and just hope they like it.” See below for some of the posts that have turned Kanye’s Twitter into an ode to interdimensional space travel and rare McNugget sauce.
