5 album covers in our archive
Behind the Covers currently documents 5 Kendrick Lamar album covers from 2012 to 2024. Read together, the entries show how the artwork changed from release to release, with each story identifying the designers, photographers, source material, and design decisions behind the sleeve.
Cover evolution
Chris Burnett designed the GNX package under creative direction from Dave Free and Kendrick Lamar, using Dave Free's black-and-white photograph of Kendrick beside the Buick as the central motif. Burnett says the car was meant to carry the music's unapologetic boldness, while the physical vinyl turns its wheel rim into the record label.
On the cover of Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, Kendrick Lamar turns his back to us, a diamond crown of thorns glinting in his braids, his daughter on his hip. Behind him, in a peeling room with a gun in sight, his fiancée nurses an infant. It is a family portrait built from faith, fatherhood, and unease.
Kendrick Lamar's DAMN. cover pairs a stark portrait with oversized red type and an unusually placed Parental Advisory label. Graphic designer Vlad Sepetov said he deliberately wanted the design to feel loud, abrasive and outside conventional design rules; the album credits Dave Free and Roberto Reyes with photography.
A black-and-white house party erupts on the White House lawn, dollar bills fanned in fists, a baby cradled in the crowd, and a dead judge sprawled at everyone's feet. Kendrick Lamar's 2015 photograph turned the seat of American power into a stage for the kids he grew up with in Compton.
A maroon minivan sits on a cracked Compton street under a hard blue sky, bent slightly by a fisheye lens. It's the deluxe face of Kendrick Lamar's 2012 album, whose standard cover is a real family Polaroid: a toddler Kendrick on his uncle's lap, the adults' eyes blacked out, a 40-ounce beside a baby bottle.
