S. Samuel
With their new Raising the Bar album now available, Cold Heat's Johnny Walker hit up SOHH to give some background info on their Queens hip-hop themed cover art.
While Walker admits he and Jak Danielz are serious hip-hop heads, the Queens-bred spitter also said their visual effects are equally important to them.
“One of the things we try to pride ourselves in is artwork,” Johnny Walker told SOHH. “Obviously the music is important, but when you’re on iTunes, the thing that’s most catchy, people are going to see out of some thug just posing on their album cover. If you look at our last three album covers, they’re all custom drawn by artists that we know. I approached my boy Pilot who does insane tattoos to basically put this together, but we wanted to keep it Queens. We’re still Queens and we grew up on Queens hip-hop. The bridge, the globe, that’s all Queens. From the graffiti to break dancing, deejaying, beat boxing, we try to cover all five elements in hip-hop. The album cover was very important so we showed we’re raising the bar.” (SOHH)
Last week, Jak Danielz gave his top reasons why fans should buy their new LP.
“The number one reason is because if Raising the Bar is good enough for DJ Premier to scream over, juggle records to it, play it all over his radio shows, then it’s definitely good enough for your iPod. It means everything. Preemo is also our man. It’s funny because I was driving in my car and I have satellite radio, so to hear the record getting cut up, that’s crazy. I grew up worshiping him. He’s probably the greatest thing in hip-hop ever. I could put his beats on and listen to them forever without even needing words. That stands to this day with probably just about every beat he’s ever made.” (5 Reasons Why You Should Buy)
Walker credited the project’s low cost as a high interest point among true hip-hop consumers.
“The number two reason is because it costs less than a pack of Newports and it won’t give you cancer. You can buy the whole album for $8.99. We wanted to make it something that’s not breaking the bank or our people and it’s just a fair price. It’s something that you can pay for and get a lot of great music off of. It’s cheaper than a pack of cigarettes nowadays. This album will last you a lifetime, a pack of cigarettes are only going to last you half a day.” (5 Reasons Why You Should Buy)
The duo are known for stepping onto the hip-hop scene around the mid-2000’s.
In 2004 Jak Danielz teamed up with NYC graffiti legend and producer Johnny Walker (aka BL One – old school new york bombing graff legend from TMR crew, NYC) to form Cold Heat Entertainment. Since it’s inception the Queens powerhouse has created a worldwide buzz through a blitz of mixtape, album and television appearances. Jak Danielz has made numerous radio appearences on college radio and Sirius Satalite Radio and XM Radio, including Shade 45 Eminem’s Station and Power 105.1 New York. (British Hip Hop)
Check out “No Bodies Leaving Alive” below:
