Buster

Buster, a rapper from Porto, challenged me and Chemega to create an album cover that would be unconventional, unexpected, and true to the story behind the music. Chemega was one of the most influential designers at the birth of Portuguese hip hop, the creator of some of its most iconic album covers and someone who pushed the format further than anyone before him. He also happened to be the first person to hire me on a professional project, right at the start of my career, so working together again after all these years made this one personal.

Buster's new album marks a turning point in his life, and he wanted the cover to speak to that transformation. He grew up in Torres do Aleixo, a set of social housing towers that, from the 80s until the 2010s, was the epicenter of drug trafficking and organized crime in the city, a place that swallowed a lot of people whole. Buster didn't grow up with much hope for the future, but through perseverance, music, and hard work, he built a life he's proud of. Metamorphosis, the album, celebrates that new chapter, everything that came after Aleixo, while still honoring the weight that his upbringing, community, and identity carry in who he is.

The design captures that transition literally: the CD is half embedded in a block of concrete, standing in for the past and everything it carries. To actually play the album, the disc has to be pulled out of the concrete, a direct metaphor for Buster's own journey.

Budget and production constraints meant swapping real concrete for a 3D printed imitation, and eventually offering a simpler blister-pack version of the album alongside the original Concrete Collector's Edition, to keep it accessible.