Eazy Digz in a Gangster’s Paradise

Acrylic, latex, spray paint & gold leaf on stretched canvas, 48” x 72”, Artist’s Collection

This work is part of a body of projects that explores culture as commodity. It relates to Los Angeles street culture, the beginning of Gangster Rap, and a landscape that references a mine of ‘natural’ resources. Commodifying street culture and disproportionately seeing profits go to the ‘stale, pale, and male’ is all too common and has been happening for long time. This painting is an intersection of thoughts, bringing them together in a landscape of sorts—perhaps more like a psychological landscape.

Curator’s Note: Gangster rap or gangsta rap emerged in mid-1980s America as a controversial hip-hop subgenre whose lyrics assert the culture and values typical of street gangs and street hustlers.