Ep 320 - Justin Bua | Hip Hop, Michelangelo & the Uglification of Culture

Justin Bua painted The DJ, one of the most popular art prints of all time, and created the look of EA Sports' NBA Street, a billion-dollar franchise. He grew up a latchkey kid in New York City, breaking in the streets beside Rocksteady Park and watching junkies and hustlers through the hallway of a single-room-occupancy building, while Rembrandt and Van Gogh hung on the walls at home. The conversation lives where hip hop art meets the sacred, in drawing as a spiritual practice and a channel from God, and in what happens when a commodified art world trades mastery for institutionally propped-up abstraction. Real rebellion, we find, can't be separated from authenticity.

(00:00) Pollock Is A Con

(00:39) Opening Conversation

(01:43) Meet Justin Bua

(02:57) NBA Street Origins

(04:44) NYC Roots And Hip Hop

(10:12) How Hip Hop Was Born

(15:35) Mentors And Street Survival

(18:32) Art Business And The DJ

(26:43) Modern Art, CIA And AI

(41:31) Uglification Economics And Architecture

(49:23) AI Art And Authenticity