For Kanye West’s first three studio albums, he used a stuffed bear mascot as his avatar for each album cover. Additionally, he still has not used his face on any cover art for any LP he has released. This decision he still abides by and the bear’s original use in his first album trilogy were all sparked by a curious decision made at a high school in 2003.
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Why the Bear?
As Kanye West was preparing to put out his debut album, The College Dropout (2004), his first full-length release as a signed artist to Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella Records, his label paid a New York City high school to let him have a photo shoot in their gymnasium.
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The photographer for the shoot was famed Danny Clinch, whose website reveals a portfolio of photos he’s taken of almost every popular musician in the last half-century. When arriving at the shoot, West discovered the school’s bear mascot, which they likely used for sporting events. As explained by producer and friend of West Plain Pat in an interview with Complex, who oversaw A&R Direction for the album, the mascot’s inclusion in the shoot was completely spontaneous.
“The bear just happened to be at the school where Def Jam had booked the photo shoot for the album,” he said. “I don’t think the bear was (premeditated). I don’t remember us bringing a bear, I don’t remember him asking for a bear either.”
West decided to put the full suit on, even the bear’s head. This was incredibly unorthodox for a debut album cover at the time, considering most artists usually had their faces somewhere on the cover art so new fans could know what they looked like. Clinch acknowledged this fact in an interview with Complex in 2014.
“I was surprised as anyone that he covered his face for the album cover, but at this point, knowing his history of breaking the rules, it doesn’t surprise me at all,” he said.
Behind-the-scenes footage from the shoot was revealed during Episode 2 of the 2022 Netflix documentary jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy. However, the final image that would be used on the album cover was not decided that day.
The Decision
In a 2013 interview with Complex, head of Art Direction & Design for the LP Eric Duvauchelle explained that the process of finalizing the cover took weeks, and was facilitated by Roc-A-Fella co-founder Damon Dash. Before making any aesthetic decisions for the project, West had Duvauchelle listen to The College Dropout first.
“The cover took about three weeks in total to design,” he said. “I was working at the in-house brand design team for Roc-A-Fella at the time and was given the project by my creative director. I first met Kanye in Damon Dash’s office when he handed over a close to final edit of the album, and he told me to listen to it to get in the mindset of what he was trying to do.”
After this, Duvauchelle was presented with all of Clinch’s photos from the high school gym. The one that stood out to him the most, which became the eventual cover, was West sitting alone on the bleachers with the full bear suit on.
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“We quickly discussed some ideas off the cuff about the title and what that meant to him,” he said. “By the time I got the project, the photo shoot of the bear suit had already taken place, so I was handed a binder full of images to pick from. I quickly gravitated towards him sitting alone on the bleachers in the mascot suit. It was interesting to me as the Dropout Bear is meant to be the most popular representation of a school, yet on the cover, it shows Kanye in the mascot suit/head, all alone sitting on bleachers.”
After concluding that this would be the perfect photo for the cover art, Duvauchelle added some finishing touches at West’s request.
“The gold ornaments on the cover around the image represented the admiration Kanye has for art, and he wanted to drastically depart from the typical image of rap at the time—to bring a sense of elegance and style to what was typically a gangster-led image of rap artists,” he recalled. “So we found these old ornaments from a book of illustrations from the 16th century and overlayed them around the central image.”
After the shoot and the album’s release, West and Roc-A-Fella offered the school a large sum of money to buy the bear suit. The school declined. So, according to toy manufacturer Eric Arginsky during an interview with Fake Shore Drive in 2021, he created a new suit to mimic the original.
Arginsky’s bear would ultimately be used in promotion of The College Dropout at press events, as the album would go on to win Best Rap Album at the 2005 Grammys. Arginsky put the costume he made on sale for $1 million in 2021.
Album cover photo by Danny Clinch
