The Houston Hip Hop Posters collection is now available in the UH Digital Library.

The Houston Hip Hop Posters collection is now available in the UH Digital Library.

Most of the 107 original posters in this digital collection were created to promote recordings by Houston hip hop artists, including such well-known figures as Bun B, DJ Screw, Paul Wall, and Scarface. The collection is also rich in the posters of artists from two underground rap collectives, the Screwed Up Click and the South Park Coalition.

The posters range in style from glossy and commercial to low budget and underground. They include images from the world-renowned Houston design firm Pen & Pixel Graphics, Inc., which pioneered the “bling” aesthetic in the nineties, particularly with their album covers for rap star Master P. They also include posters by independent Houston designer Mike Frost of SLFEMP.

Approximately one-third of the posters were acquired from Samplified Digital Recording Studios, and some of those were signed by the artists for the studio’s owner, Keenan “Maestro” Mosley. A handful of posters were retrieved from the original Cullen Blvd. location of DJ Screw’s Screwed Up Records and Tapes, where they had hung on the walls for many years. A few of the posters relate to Houston’s car culture, which is closely associated with hip hop music.

The original materials are available in UH Libraries Special Collections in the Houston Hip Hop Recording Artists Collection and the Samplified Digital Recording Studios Records.