Brooklyn-born, Atlanta-based artist Fahamu Pecou is the shit. He even says so himself. What began as a marketing campaign since became Pecou's mantra.
Pecou was just responding to the campaign that was surging hype surrounding 50 Cent's debut, and it snowballed. Pecou says "I thought it was a brilliant phenomenon that someone could be a star just because a poster said so. Prior to the marketing campaign, I had never heard of 50 Cent nor, I dare say, had most other people in the world. Regardless, when his album dropped, everyone’s ear was tuned in... In like spirit and concept, I began a poster and sticker campaign that read “FAHAMU PECOU IS THE SHIT” in big bold letters with a graphic illustration of me in my hardest hip-hop pose. The idea seemed to work... Soon I began receiving requests for posters, stickers and shirts from New York to Chicago to LA. Friends of mine who wore the shirt would often regale me with their tales of trying to explain to strangers why Fahamu Pecou was the Shit and how he got to be so." Clever cookie.
The artist wasn't just hype either, Pecou has talent to warrant his catchphrase. His large-scale paintings are takes on magazine covers, making poignant statements about the ways that African American men are depicted in the media, and perceieved by the public. His thoughtful, and aesthetically pleasing, artworks pften feature himself (not as self-portraiture, but symbolically) and ponder the Western world's ideas about masculinity, power, race, ignorance and stereotyping.
Pecou says (in an awesome interview in
Juxtapoz): "Rappers are the new bad boys of American culture."
More at
fahamupecouart.com.