Get Familiar Issue #02: HipHopHuis

In the second issue of Get Familiar Magazine, we were blessed enough to chat with 2 x Grammy-nominated rapper Rapsody. While speaking to her about her creative process and vision, we also touched on the importance of her formal education. She intelligently explained the added value of that experience for her professional career and personal growth but didn’t shy away from reminding us that “an education, however and wherever we can get it, is aligned with success”. Resonating true to the separate and combined missions of HipHopHuis and Get Familiar Magazine, we joined hands to double down on both organizations’ promise to enable critical thought by empowering our communities (direct and indirect) with knowledge. Through the written interviews of Get Familiar Magazine and lectures, classes and community events of HipHopHuis, we found each other’s missions inspiring and worthy of a partnership. That common mission and love for hip-hop has birthed a limited edition magazine cover (designed by Butterfingaz) as well as a 16oz canvas tote-bag (designed by Slay All Day).





The Limited Edition Cover

Commissioned by HipHopHuis and Get Familiar Magazine, Butterfingaz was asked to bring to life the cover of this issue for a limited run. After reviewing the interviews presented in this issue as well as her impressions of both HipHopHuis and Get Familiar, she summarized both organizations as ones that, while grounded in hip-hop music, push forward the stories of powerful personalities, thought leaders, and cultural influencers. After requesting the music that was listened to while typing the stories of Get Familiar’s second issue, it was Curtis Mayfield’s Move on Up that tied the story together for her. An emotion that, according to her, also reflects the mission of both HipHopHuis and Get Familiar to push forward hip-hop’s cultural influence. Channeling the motivating energy of both the magazine’s content as well as Curtis Mayfield’s famed anthem, brought to life what’s now the cover – an explosion of colors that stretch beyond the page, in the same way that HipHopHuis and Get Familiar Magazine tell stories that stretch beyond hip-hop.

The Limited Edition 16oz Canvas Tote-bag

The tote-bag, designed by Slay All Day, ran with the idea of knowledge being the currency that both HipHopHuis and Get Familiar Magazine trade in. Extending the collaboration between HipHopHuis and Get Familiar Magazine into a second physical product, the tote-bag translates the thought of knowledge being our currency into the design of a double-sided coin: of which the front showed a MPC and the back the cover-image of Rapsody's album Eve (2019), surrounded by the quote: "an education, however and wherever we can get it, is aligned with success", taken directly from the interview with her in Get Familiar Magazine's issue 02.