3 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 3 album covers documented under the "vulnerability" design theme, spanning the 2010s, 2020s. These covers sit within the hip-hop, r&b tradition and feature work by Denzel Curry, SZA, Kendrick Lamar. Each entry below includes the cover artwork, the designers and photographers behind it, and a short story about the visual choices that defined the release.
Denzel Curry's introspective masterpiece features a striking close-up of the rapper's face split between shadow and warm light, creating a powerful visual metaphor for the album's themes of mental health and personal transformation.
SZA's SOS cover transforms intimate vulnerability into stark visual poetry, featuring the singer diving backwards into murky water. The image captures the album's themes of emotional drowning and rebirth through a single, perfectly timed underwater moment.
Shot in a single afternoon in Compton, this deceptively simple Polaroid-style cover became one of hip-hop's most powerful statements on Black masculinity and vulnerability. The raw intimacy of Kendrick's expression contrasts sharply with typical rap album imagery.