“So, when I did the album cover, I tried to give it a ’70s feel with them guys in the bellbottoms and the pimp gear.”
They even had George Clinton on it … and I'm a big Parliament-Funkadelic fan,” Hawkins said. They were trying to have a ’70s vibe on it.
“Andre came over and played some tunes for me, and I kind of got the feel of it. The album, which featured the single “Rosa Parks,” went double platinum, meaning Hawkins’ vibrant, now-iconic cover illustration would reach millions of people. They really feel this is going to be a big one, Greg,’” said Hawkins, who was honored to accept the gig, though he had no idea just how big Outkast’s 1998 record, Aquemini, would get. “She called me and said, ‘Andre wants you to do his album cover for this album. In 1998, before the release of Outkast’s third album, Hawkins got a call from Sharon Benjamin-Hodo. By the mid-’90s, little Andre Benjamin had grown up to form Outkast, his Atlanta rap group with Big Boi, which signed to LaFace Records, a label founded by L.A. Hawkins also painted murals and worked on designs for Black hair care companies, all the while connecting with people in the music industry through Pablo & Associates and Maurice Alfred. “We came up with all kinds of stuff when the Michael Jackson craze hit.” “All you had to do was draw a sparkly glove and put that on the front of a T-shirt, or some white socks and some penny loafers,” Hawkins said. Thanks to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, 1983 was a great year for T-shirt sales. I would do a lot of the unlicensed stuff for the vendors to sell at the Atlanta Braves games, Atlanta Hawks games and Falcons games.” I was doing a lot of T-shirt designs for the bootleggers. People saw my craft and saw my work ethic, and I just fell right in. “There was no problem getting work here in Atlanta. “Everything was happening out of Atlanta then,” said Hawkins, who now lives just outside of the city in Stone Mountain, Georgia. “I had a studio set up with my drawing board and easel, and Andre was fascinated with my artwork,” Hawkins said.īy 1983, Hodo convinced Hawkins to join him in Atlanta. Benjamin’s son, Andre, would visit Hawkins’ apartment as a toddler. Reid.”įor a time, Hawkins shared an apartment with Columbus North friend Robert Hodo, who moved to Atlanta in 1979 and married a woman named Sharon Benjamin. I did T-shirt designs for Babyface and L.A. “You wouldn't believe the groups and artists that I came in contact with,” Hawkins said. “She walked me into the principal’s office and said, ‘Sign this boy up for art,’” Hawkins said.Īfter a stint at CCAD, Hawkins got his first real job as an artist through his friend Maurice Alfred, who connected Hawkins with Pablo & Associates founder William “Pablo” Davis, a Columbus music promoter, producer and manager of bands such as Midnight Star and The Deele, a 1980s Ohio R&B group featuring Antonio "L.A." Reid and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, both of whom would later become legendary songwriters, producers and record executives. I was always drawing posters and stuff for parties.”Īt Columbus North High School, which offered a two-period “art major” at the time, Hawkins got more interested in basketball and tried to put art on the shelf, but his mother wasn’t having it. “I got all the help in the world from my parents and people in the neighborhood who found out that I was good at art. “Out of all the kids in the city, they picked one of my pieces to be exhibited at the museum,” said Hawkins, who also attended Saturday art classes at CCAD and Ohio State. Hawkins remembers a drawing that ran in the Columbus Citizen-Journal newspaper, and another hand-picked by the Columbus Museum of Art in the ’60s. But the affirmation of his artistic talents came from the community, as well. “I'd lay down there on the floor and start drawing, and my brothers, they would just quit drawing and sit there and start watching me.”Įventually, Hawkins’ mom had to come up with other competitions because he always won the drawing contests. So she would give us crayons and sit us on the floor and say, ‘You guys draw me a picture, and whoever has the best picture gets extra dessert,’” Hawkins said. “She was raising three hardheaded boys, and my father would be at work all day. Growing up in Columbus’ Milo-Grogan neighborhood in the 1960s, Gregory Hawkins knew he was a gifted artist from a young age, mainly because his mother told him so.
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