Cey City: With Cey Adams

39:14Like you couldn't walk around without an escort. The same way you see in movies when people are walking around in the hood and they don't have an escort, you get checked. It was the same way. When you went into white neighborhoods, if you didn't have somebody with you, they would run you out of there. If you were lucky, you would just get ran out. And that was the thing about growing up with graffiti is that our friends were across the spectrum, you know, black, white, Asian, Latino, all of it. But so, you know, we never thought about, you know, what your parents do. We just, you know, if you like somebody's hand styles and they're cool people, the end, that's as far as it went until you had to go to their neighborhood.

40:17And they would have to meet you at the train station and escort you in because you were by yourself. That might be the last time anybody sees you. How does it feel now that everyone in Greenpoint is now a creative director? How does that make you feel as someone who has held that title now? You know, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. But what I will say is I'm glad that people have gotten past the idea that Photoshop is a tool for graphic design. And, you know, I was so tired of looking at Photoshop design, you know, club flyer. and I thought nobody's using illustrator or, you know, I could even mention, you know, Quark and, you know, obviously like InDesign is, you know, King now, but I like it because it's, it goes right back to the punk rock era.

41:18It's, it's DIY. The, the, the only thing that I hope is that the design is as good as the need to want to do it yourself. bars do you ever get called up by a young soundcloud rapper or someone that finds you on instagram and wants you to do their album artwork sure yeah you ever entertain them i i've done it a couple of times if i like the music okay um but there's just too many people out there and the the likelihood that one of these people is going to be the next ll cool j or beastie boys or Slick Rick or Jay-Z is probably unlikely. But I have done it if, like I said, I like the music and some of these people just don't take no for an answer.

42:12The idea is... And they're telling you they're the next Jay-Z. They're telling you. And if they can meet you where you are today in your career and you dig the product, there's no reason to say no. But what I don't understand is what do they use the graphics for? Spotify. You know, like to see it on the internet is not to experience holding a CD or even a cassette or an album in your hand. I just don't understand how it works. It goes on the grid. Yeah, it goes on the feed. I mean, so much also what you're describing, too, is like the album artwork, not just as like a cover, but as like a piece of like art, like a package and also like, you know, a fold out.

43:03Right. There would be, you know, sort of multiple pages, Kevin. You know, there'd be sort of sometimes you can open it up and there'd be a poster like there was a sort of an art to not just the cover, but the whole thing. And my old boss worked at Rockefeller for a little bit. his name is Chad Hogan and he has designed some amazing album artworks and I was always interested in not just the front or the cover but the insides and all the sort of shout out pages and the documentary style stuff that collage a lot of thought went into it and I still have a whole bin of CD booklets and you know I toss the CD because you know after a while It's like, okay, I already have it on vinyl.

43:49I saved some of the cassettes. And you start to wonder what you're saving it for. Because even if you have an exhibition, the album covers sort of what people are going to tie it back to. Nobody wants to see every format from 150 recording artists. They're like, okay, we get it. They're not interested in the booklets. Right. Well, not from that many artists. I mean, we did a lot. Do you have them in storage? I have them in my archives. If you had to pick, what's your favorite, most proud album artwork that you've done? I would have to say it's a coin toss between Fear of a Black Planet by Public Enemy and Hello Nasty by the Beastie Boys.

44:37Wow. Hello Nasty is, because we were looking into your background. Helen Asty, 1998. I was 14 years old. And this, that, I've always been a fan of these boys. Please tell me that you were at least born. I was born. I was three. Okay. Oh, my God. And Helen Asty is, yeah, no, that's one of my personal favorite records of all time. And the artwork, you know, sardine can, space, sort of a retro type. It's a beautiful package. I have to stop you right now and give a big shout out to my friend Bill McMullen because while I owned a design firm, he was my lead designer and he put his foot in it. He did such a beautiful job with that.

45:30And this is when having the skill of knowing how to use Photoshop really came into play. he spent so much time working with the band and really just long nights putting this thing together and i i don't really have a lot of opportunities to talk about it at length and so i wanted to acknowledge that because i i knew he was brilliant then he's probably doing something brilliant right now but that was the thing that i'm most proud of even independent of the albums that we designed was the team that we had. People like Kenny Gravelis, Dee Dallara, again, Bill McMullen, and my partner and buddy Steve Carr.

46:22We had a rock star team of really interesting, creative people. And there's just way too many people to name check. Oh, and Jason Noto from Morning Breath. like just so many folks that were just brilliant and when i i think about those times what i remember the most is how much fun we had and the idea that i was lucky enough to give some of these people their first job opportunities and now they're you know in mars yeah because they're so damn talented that's one of my favorite things about that time period yeah no i think that's i really resonate with that because to me that's when you know that's that's that's what i love to do it's really about you know sort of giving opportunities and sort of helping other people find their footing in the door and yeah you know for for a young bill mcmullin to do hella nasty and that you know that album you know again means a lot to a lot of people myself included but just yeah no it's about giving to others and really yeah opening up the door and um i'm on a website right now and i'm looking through all the you know sort of the the the album listing and sort of the artwork and everything and it's just it's it's perfect we had a blast doing that and this is also where the bc boys are at the height of their fame yeah and they have complete creative control and we spent so much time thinking about that cover and the inside packaging we went through a lot of uh you know chinese and asian takeout late nights between recording the music them recording the music i don't want anybody to think i'm saying i was recording music but we just went over ideas and to know that management is not going to get in the way the record company is not you know going to get in the way the idea is what is going to win and you know as creatives you never have that kind of confidence to think that the best idea will always win.

48:45Sure. There's a quote here that said that they plan to do a, Bill planned to do a weird bottom of the sea type thing. But then Adam actually said, yeah, that's cool. But you know, it's really cool. Space. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, listen, that's just how a genius is born. And so yeah, no, I mean, you've had such an illustrious career. And again, we could talk to you at length about every album. Before you get out of here, I just have a couple others I want to hear about. But Chappelle, how does Dave Chappelle enter the picture of, say, Adams' life? And what was the sort of brief or what did he ask for when he said, I need a logo for my show, Chappelle Show?

49:22Well, the funny thing is, just, man, like three weeks ago, I was with Dave Chappelle, and I heard him say to someone else that he asked me to create his Nike swoosh. Wow. And I thought, wow, that is not the way I remember. That's not what I remember. Because I think I designed the Chappelle Show logo in, I want to say in 2001. And he sent me a VHS tape of a couple of skits from Chappelle Show. And Chris Rock had introduced the two of us. And I heard his name. Maybe he was in whatever the movie is with Eddie Murphy Boomerang. I think he had a small part in that. So I think I had seen that. But by no means did I really know who he was.

50:31I knew he was a comedian. And so when Chris introduced us, we got together. And like I said, he sent me a VHS tape. and I sort of sat down and I watched it and I thought, man, this guy is really like a throwback to the classic days. And I just immediately wanted to create something that I thought was revolutionary because I thought he was reinventing comedy one more time. And there's not that many people that have done that as it relates to black comedians over the last 50 years. I mean, you could count on half of one hand how many people have broken through in a major way, and he's one and Chris Rock is another.

51:24I can just stop right there. No, legends. Killing them softly. Again, this is my Mount Rushmore of favorite things. Hello, Nasty. Killing them softly. And I will say, Dave has put that logo to good use over the years he uses it everywhere a champ you know i i was saying this to him because i was excited enough that he was using it you know with repetition yeah and the same thing with mary j blige um that is something that you hope for but you cannot control that and And he said this in his own words. He brought me on stage at Madison Square Garden. And this is just a few short weeks ago. And he said, you helped to make this logo iconic.

52:25And I said, I designed it. You made it iconic because you used it in so many different ways. I came up with the creation, but you put the gas in the car. And he gave me a diamond pendant. Like not unlike the one that you're wearing. No diamonds here, but just yes. But he brought me on stage at Madison Square Garden. And now if you've ever been to the garden, any of you listeners out there, you know i i've been to the garden but to be on stage at the garden and i don't have a guitar in my hand or a basketball like forget about it and he puts this thing around my neck and it was just one of the best feelings ever hell of a pat on the back right yeah that's a good thank you you know sort of a chaining day moment right yeah you know i i can remember the last time i had a piece of jewelry it was in the 80s yeah i noticed you didn't wear it today no and if i was thinking i would have uh well um well that's it's it's funny what you're talking about in terms of like logos getting meaning over time and i think as designers we all know that you know we'll get a client or someone that's like i want something as iconic as the nike swoosh and it's like well are you gonna create a company as iconic as nike and then a check will become a swoosh right And I think that's a great sort of story to say, yeah, you created an iconic logo, and he turned it into a brand.

54:03Sure. I couldn't even think of a better way to say thank you. And that's the kind of thing that most creatives would dream about, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you had a dream that big. because the likelihood is that you're going to be disappointed. And I just want to make something that I'm proud of in the moment that works for the client. The end. I don't even allow myself to see it past that. The job is service. It's like you're putting food on a plate and the person sitting down, you want them to love it, wipe their mouth and say thank you and say that's one of the best meals I ever had.

54:50That is incredible advice. Honestly, because I think so many young designers, they're thinking about what is this going to do for the future, for them, for their career? What is this going to unlock? What's this going to create opportunity for my next thing? And it's like, just do the job and make the person something that they're going to love. and if then what where it goes from there you don't know like i'm sure no control over that yeah and it's easy for me to say what i just said because i've designed so many logos and album covers for people you have never heard of of course i'm sure way more than once we have a lot yeah and i was walking through the airport just a couple of weeks ago and saw one of those bands And I thought, yeah, you know, I was like, wow, those guys are still out there.

55:46And nobody turned around with excitement. And so, you know, juxtapose that with these amazing, famous people. But that's my reality, knowing that I've done a lot of good work that a lot of people have not seen. Yeah. And I think that's, yeah, Stefan Sagmester has a quote, like being a famous designer is like being a famous dentist. You know, it's like, you know, it's like no one really knows. But for the people that know, you know, again, it's like you can go, you know, at that Urban Outfitters or at the, you know, sort of you see your work or wherever, you know, you're like, you know that that's you.

56:27And like, but that's the job. If you're walking around as a designer, an art director, a creative director, and you're patting yourself on the back in real time, chances are the work is not that good. Well, there's a lot of people that have just been put on notice. Ego's a hell of a drug. Yeah, ego's a hell of a drug. I mean, listen, take it from saying, your work speaks for itself. Before we get you out of here, I just want to transition or just talk a little bit about your more recent work as an artist. And obviously, you know, you've you've kind of gone back to making things with your hands again.

57:01And I imagine that's very sort of exciting. And a lot of your work explores themes in in brands, in, you know, sort of loyalty, capitalism. And, you know, a lot of that, it seems, you know, inspired by sort of your early years of, you know, sort of rolling with some pop art heroes and guys. You know, talk to me about sort of why, you know, your work sort of explores that relationship and why it's so exciting for you. instantly I thought I've been very fortunate in the you know to be able to design what I wanted in the music space and I just thought there's no way I'm gonna continue to keep doing that same thing um I can think about you know which recording artists over the last 20 years since I stopped doing design for brands or I should say record companies because brands is something different but you could I could just stop right there and just say okay you know what I've done that and I just I just thought I wanted to do something different even if I'm revisiting a place that I came from and so the idea was I've done this there won't be another DMX or Jay-Z or Beastie Boys.

58:22So let's just move on and find something else that I can enjoy doing and maybe find another way to express myself. And so it led me to making fine art in the way that I did when I was a teenager, only now I have a lifetime of experience behind it. So when I'm working on things, I'm not trying to impress people. I'm trying to make things for me. Yeah. And as you were saying before, you were making things for your entire career for just to make other people happy, right? That's the job. It's not about you. It's about servicing the client. And if you're lucky enough to have it come full circle and to satisfy your soul at the same time, mission accomplished.

59:12It's a beautiful thing. And so when I started making this work, the first thing I did was I wanted to celebrate my favorite brands. And so I did a body of work called Trusted Brands. And it's sort of tongue in cheek, but I am somebody that is a fan of logos and branding and I'm not going to make something to disrespect a brand or logo that I like. It's all in homage. I am not saying that they're perfect but the idea is really to shine a light on the craftsmanship of these people that design these amazing logos and nobody's doing that right now. Andy Warhol and a bunch of other folks did it in the 50s and 60s.

1:00:05And I just thought it was time to revisit that. And the thing that I settled on was thinking to myself, okay, what's the number one brand in America? The American flag. Regardless of how individuals see it, Yeah. It is, you know, when you travel to Europe and Asia, they'll let you know in a minute whether they love or hate America. Yeah. It tells you it is the most popular brand in the world. It's got new meaning these days, unfortunately. But I think that only makes it more interesting, right? One way or another, you know, for good or bad, it's so. It is what is so. It is the most popular brand in America.

1:00:56And I thought I could have some fun by putting a contemporary spin on that, telling some interesting stories about who we are and where we come from, and breaking down the barriers of people seeing red, white, and blue as this sort of patriotic symbol. It's that, but it's also about a rainbow of people that have built this country and made it great. So it's not one or the other. It's all and both. Yeah. And I think that's what's so interesting and so exciting about the work is like, yeah, these brands are, yeah, some of them are, you know, they're corporations, you know. They're 150-year-old sort of entities.

1:01:42And some of them, yeah, they have problematic sections on their Wikipedia. and that's part of it, you know? And they have different meaning, but they touch all of us, right, in a way. Or, you know, we all have a relationship with Coca-Cola. And they all get an opportunity to try to correct that with time. And I'm not saying that, you know, there aren't blemishes, but as long as you're trying to be better today, that's the most important thing and when I get an opportunity to partner with a brand that celebrates diversity and gives me the creative freedom to do my thing that's any creative's dream that's exactly what you want somebody that sees you for who you are respects who you are and is going to give you the space to do your thing and not to be on your shoulder micromanaging you?

1:02:46Well, that last part, you know, we don't always get. But, you know, it is a gift, right? You know, you're right. Like any opportunity, and I think that way all the time, especially designers, you know, sometimes, like you said, they're thinking three steps ahead. Any person that comes to you and says, you know, I want your help or I want you to work with me on this piece is a privilege and is an honor to be in that position, to be asked, let alone if they pay you, you know, then the responsibility is real. And I think, again, it's beautiful to hear you talk about design and art in that way. Because you can also not get the call, and all those values could still be intact, and you can't be mad.

1:03:25And that's one of the things that I say oftentimes as well, is that the call could go to one of my famous friends that also do art and design. And I can't be mad. I'm like, good. I'm happy to see that they got it right because there's only a small handful of us. And if it went to that person or that person or that person, that's just as good as them coming to me. Yeah. I remember there was a student that I was talking to and he said that he got a call from Nike and he wound up turning it down because they were trying to sort of, he said to take advantage of him and sort of weren't willing to pay him the rate.

1:04:07And I said, what do you mean? You're a student and they're Nike. Like, you know, they were giving you an opportunity and that opportunity could have helped you in so many different ways. And, you know, you have to take that opportunity and be grateful for it because you don't know when the next one is going to call. That's the definition of an idiot. Exactly. And I listen, I won't put this person on blast. But yeah, I just remember thinking that is the total opposite of how I've made my career is, you know, opportunities come and you have to appreciate them. And, you know, especially when you're a young sort of trying to make it in the world.

1:04:43He jumped on that horse and put both his arms around it and held on. He said, I'll do it for free. And people say, oh, I don't want to do work for free. I need my value, my worth. And of course, you need to get your worth. But I'm not saying you shouldn't. But the opportunity is to get a Nike call. This is the thing that young people have to take into consideration. if you do something for free pro bono whatever it is nobody knows that but you you can tell people whatever you want when you show them your portfolio that's a paid client even if you didn't get anything nobody knows the difference yeah and if you would have said to the to adam horowitz and the beastie boys uh sorry you know this is my rate and if you can't uh meet that i you might not be sitting here with a retrospective of your work in museums.

1:05:39It's just one of the things that I try to remind the team that I work with at the studio now is every time you're working on something, that's an opportunity for you to show people what you're capable of. All I'm doing is putting that opportunity in front of you. But you still have to get up there and swing and hit a single, a double, a triple, or my preference, a home run. I've used that same analogy here in the studio. I said, listen, it's nice to hit doubles, but when you hit a home run, you know what it feels like, and it's the best feeling in the world. And yeah, to give people that opportunity, it's incredible.

1:06:25How does it feel to have this sort of retrospective moment in your life where you see your work, the entirety of everything you've made in a museum. What is that feeling for someone? I can't imagine. Well, it feels wonderful, number one, to be anywhere. We'll just start there. but the idea that all of this stuff happened with no blueprint or roadmap is an even better feeling because it didn't happen for a lot of my graffiti and street art friends and I just feel so fortunate that I get to wake up and determine my own fate every single day. If I need to sleep an extra 10 minutes, I can do that.

1:07:18And my lights are still going to be on. And I don't take it for granted one minute because there's so many other things that could have happened to make the wind blow in another direction. And so every time I start my day, I literally live in gratitude because I know that so many of my friends couldn't crack the code for whatever reason. Well, I think that's a beautiful place to end. Thank you so much, Say, for being here. When we started the show, we just wanted to talk about design in a way that was, you know, not stuffy or boring or sort of pinkies up and sort of break down some of the walls of, you know, kind of the white tablecloth of design.

1:08:04And I never in a million years did I think I'd get to talk to legends like you so thank you so much uh for being here and for for telling all those incredible inspiring stories uh where can people follow you uh tiktok uh you know well they can certainly go to my instagram it's uh at say adams uh c-e-y-a-d-a-m-s i'm on twitter facebook uh linkedin like all of them all the platforms same handle but uh if you see somebody on their dancing uh you're not dancing it's probably uh created in ai so i mean listen go back to the uh the original roots of hip-hop right you know b-boying you stayed true to the graffiti you know that was it well you found your lane i just always thought it's hard enough to do one thing the idea that you could be a renaissance person and do all these things as a teenager and and have it be good it was hard enough just doing one thing yeah yeah you know emceeing i'm looking at the five elements of hip-hop which emceeing djing breaking graph and beatboxing Just pick one.

1:09:24It's a lot. Just hit one and do it hard. Kevin, you got any thoughts? I feel like, Kevin, I want to hear from Kevin. I was just soaking it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's such a pleasure. You ever think about picking up this bright pink again and tagging something? I am over 60. I will just say that. We'll start right there. Second, there's no upside. I get to paint every day. and coming off COVID, all I want to breathe is fresh air. That's true. I gave away cases of spray paint after COVID hit. I was like, you know what? I can use a brush and get the same effect. I don't need to do this anymore. And, you know, it's just what it is.

1:10:10We're just in this space where I'm not trying to run from anybody. I'm not trying to out-talk anybody. I don't want to have anything but love come in my direction. That's fair. Beautiful. One of the things I read in our research was all your years of graffiti, all your years of tagging thing, never arrested once. Well, you know, it's not as many years as you would think. So look at it like this. If even to be nice, let's say my career starts in 1976, 77, and it ends by 1983, 84, when my son Eric is born. How many years is that? You're young. You should be able to do this quick. 50. I grew up on calculators.

1:11:09I don't know how to do that. 77 to 83 what is that oh yeah six yeah sorry i it's not it's not that long it's not that long so you that that but all those years you'd never no one no one no one got you this is the thing all you have to do is be faster than the slowest person in your crew and so your crew is about five six people deep what is the likelihood that you would be the slowest person that's that's the way you got to look at it pretty high pretty uh you know again you know that's uh when i was a teenager all i did was run all i did was run and i'm give or take you know 10 pounds different than when i was as a teenager yeah maybe i wasn't being outrun by anybody so the the idea that a grown man could outrun a teenager no no you don't have that desire though to put your name uh say say city at 60 years old still i i could turn any job into that moment at any you know like point in time i could say okay i want to turn the clock back and it's you know 1979 all over again it's like even just saying it out loud i'm like no you're good you're good you're good you know yeah you like uh the technology you know uber and you know you know like let's see what ai can do with it yeah yeah do you ever uh in terms of ai you see people doing say Adams like work out there they take your style and they put it into a robot God bless them you know what I'm curious to see if they could create something that has the feel and texture of paint like real paint you know it's one thing for something to live in a digital world but to bring it into the real world like then that would be scary yeah they're like at least like six to eight months away from doing that right you know that's you know don't worry about that your job's safe you know as a fine artist for at least another believe me if they could create a machine that could mimic like a hand gesture put a can of spray paint in it you know even as i'm saying it out loud you're like starting to get nervous that doesn't seem like is that difficult no i know i mean that's the thing about ai that But I've always felt too, it's like, well, they can't really do logos yet.

1:13:51They're really not doing packaging. They can't really do brand identity quite yet. But it doesn't feel like they're not that far away from doing it. What I've come to notice is the client doesn't always demand the most from the creator. And so, you know, oftentimes I've gone to pitches and things and the person on the client side is 12 years old and they don't have enough history to even know what good looks like. That's the scariest thing about design. Yeah. When the person hiring the talent doesn't know what good looks like. That's how bad design creeps into everything. Because, you know, the client doesn't know what bad looks like.

1:14:44I'm not going to say a single thing here. I would never disparage any of our clients. But you're not naming names. They all have incredible taste. We're not naming names. They're all just so great. They have brilliant minds. They see things in ways that I can't imagine. I'm just here to help them. They're so smart and so talented. Happens to us all the time. No, it's true. That's the thing. Prompts. It's about what someone isn't asking for sometimes. that is what comes out. Question for you there that we didn't get to. Is there any concept or anything that you worked on that you love that just didn't make it to the world?

1:15:19Like any, you know, something that you're just like, you still think about at night and wish that - No. I don't have the space in my brain to reminisce about anything that did not happen. I'm happy if I can remember what I have to do today. And, you know, all of that stuff. Yeah, Linda, yeah. It's just, you know, there's no, you know, space where I'm thinking about something that hasn't happened. Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, no regrets, a life of just absolute iconic work and a kind human being, you know? It's impressive, Sam. You really have cracked the code here. And you're still doing it. Still doing it.

1:16:01Clients still calling, still looking, still got briefs? That's the job. Like I said, you know, grandkids. I got work to do. They don't care about any of this stuff we're talking about. All they want to know is, is the ice cream going to be on the cone? That's why you got to do that graphic design. You got to pay the bills. But no, seriously, say it's been an honor and an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for, yeah, I think, again, your work, it speaks for itself. But to hear some of the stories behind the work, it's outstanding. And yeah, thank you for everything. And thank you for coming here to Greenpoint.

1:16:37back to the old stomping grounds thank you so much, it's been so great yeah, it's a lot of fun, thanks for having me absolutely, thank you

1:17:07I like the demons and the tones, and words can't stand I have to blend up and now I go to my bench It's like a new inner, when the record spins I like a dinky down deep from the record beat When everybody get down, make no mistake Nothing sounds quite like an 808 Money making, money money making Super disco disco freaky Money making, money money making Super disco disco freaky

1:17:41Sometimes I like the bread Sometimes we start smoking And when I'm in hole and I eat the pen of cookies The one with the spice You bring the sauce And you can get my ass you funky boss Now that you die what you want to want more Well I'll be with the hammer and the nail at your door Yeah with these fucking beats I'll be going head hunting Shouts to my beats let me know if you feel something Cause I can't get a beat for you need A little beat for the reader And some words to read Let me tell you now that's my favorite shit And if we got a new vibe, I'll just say show. Money, money, money, money, money.

1:18:12To a disco, disco, faking. Money, money, money, money. To a disco, disco, faking.

1:18:47What's up?