Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 07/06/2012 at 9:06 AM News

The Popdust Files: 2 Chainz, cover art, DONDA, kanye west

Kanye West’s DONDA company will fix broken systems. It’ll dream of, create, advertise and produce products driven equally by emotional want and utilitarian need. It’ll galvanize amazing thinkers. It’ll launch seven-screen experiences and seventy-tons-of-hyped albums and films. And sometimes it’ll just photograph two chains against a black background, like so:

That’s the album art for 2 Chainz’ Based on a True Story album, due August 14. The rapper commissioned DONDA and photographer Fabien Montique for the portrait and told Billboard:

“They were the first people I thought of. Their team is unprecedented. Expect next level imagery, sonics and stage performance. This is curated art. The Louvre of rap. [ed. note: so DONDA can be totally shut down so will.i.am can record?]

Lest we snark, DONDA is a design company; this is a design. It’s a rather simplified design, too, like Kanye said. It fits the mission, albeit in a small, favors-for-friends way. The art’s not bad, either, and certainly could have been a lot worse. DONDA could have been commissioned, for instance, to do album art for 2 Chainz when he was called Tity Boi.