Celebrating the 25th anniversary of hip hop’s most controversial albums, the man behind Tupac’s iconic “Makaveli” album cover, Riskie, has linked with Zelus for a truly unique NFT collection.
Beginning on November 5th, the 25th anniversary of the acclaimed album’s release, Zelus will release a series of twenty-five NFTs every day for seven days, each one inspired by the cover art of the Death Row Records classic.
Zelus is a 1-stop shop for the creation and issuance of NFTs, offering all the expertise necessary in a single company. From IP to creative to marketing to technical to investment, the company offers the full suite of services from an idea’s infancy to full production and execution.
The collection will feature all new digital artwork inspired by Riskie Forever’s original album artwork. Each day, Zelus will release different limited editions of video artwork paired with physical items created by Riskie. The campaign will culminate on the seventh day with the release of a 3D NFT of the album cover.
“Our studio was founded on the idea of creating NFTs that are not only potentially valuable, but also hold unique meaning for collectors and fans,” noted Dale Alexander, Chief of Creative for Zelus. “It doesn’t get much more meaningful than celebrating an iconic artist and one of rap music’s all-time greats in one collection.”
Elevating the historic nature of this collection, Zelus has re-obtained the original artwork for the album cover of “The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory”, crafted by Riskie in 1996, which was shared with Tupac just days before his untimely death. Sharing his excitement was Riskie on Instagram with the following caption, “
I never thought I would lay my eyes on this painting ever again! It’s been along time and I’m glad you made it safely back from Trinidad. I wanna thank you Mazuree for taking good care of this iconic piece of art 👊🏾 this is the real deal the one 2pac touched personally!!”
One holder of a Makaveli Forever Edition NFT will receive this one-of-a-kind piece of Hip Hop history. Other winners of 1-of-1 auctions will receive items like a stained glass version of the art, original feedback notes between Riskie and Tupac, and a new 25th anniversary commission piece by Riskie.
“I was in my office and got a call from Norris Anderson who was president of Death Row then. He had just got a call from Suge. He was explaining to me the idea Suge and Tupac had come up with for his next album. I was gonna be the one to paint it. I had less than 2 hours to create a mock up of what the painting was gonna look like for a meeting in Malibu, California later that night,” Riskie said previously in an exclusive interview with Andy Moffat of Hip Hop XXIV. Tupac didn’t show up for the meeting. I think he was on set for the movie Gang Related or Gridlock’d I’m not sure. Suge liked my idea and told me to get started. The next day I got the painting for the 7 Day Theory started and met up with Tupac at Can-Am Studios in Tarzana, California to show him. He liked the painting so I finished it and the rest was history.” (View full interview here.)
Fans can explore the collection by heading to Makaveli.io. Users will link their wallet with OpenSea, and have the ability to handle transactions in ETH and other supported crypto currencies.