Jack Harlow - Jackman. | ALBUM COVER REVIEW
ENTRY 26: a more direct return to form
Harlow is back after dipping out for a little bit, and trust me, you’re gonna wanna hear this.
The Album Cover
Kamikaze, Her Loss, hopefully Chance the Rapper’s next release—I love a good, “I heard you,” album. An artist tries something new, or just falls into a sort of lull of mediocrity, the listeners make their voices heard, the artist goes back to the drawing board. After the abysmal reception to Come Home The Kids Miss You, Jack Harlow’s huge 2022 album, he definitely heard the people. He basically went away for a while after a quick tour (that I went to), and did a surprise return with Jackman.
Jack’s back with a more focused, no-frills, no features record who’s stripped back cover perfectly matches its vibe.
Looking at the shot itself, the dusty old basketball hoop, the unkempt landscape (and unkempt Harlow), all lead to this more raw, direct, and homegrown feel. Come Home was incredibly polished as far as big rap albums go, and was Jack’s stamp on the industry, it just didn’t land so well. I personally love the album, it was one of my most played of last year, but it was universally panned. Whether that criticism was justified, or Jack was just the perfect dartboard for everyone’s boiled over frustration with the state of pop rap, I don’t know.
Looking down the rustic backdrop of a Louisville alleyway, we get some great lines of perspective here.
The red arrows show us the natural perspective of the road that leads into the background, but also perfectly shoots up to Jack’s fed up and determined expression, the centrepiece of the cover.
There’s this overwhelming greenish tint to the shot, which makes it feel like film photography. I can’t be sure, but lots of Wyatt’s photos appear this way, so it’s a solid assumption.
The possibly intentional compositional inclusion of the trash bins to the right may have been a jab at critics and internet memers alike, almost an alley-oop to the jokes he knows they’ll make.
It’s just Jack here, as the title implies, and this ties back to a great line of his on “Churchill Downs”, the big Drake collab from Come Home—
“Everybody know Jack, but they don’t know Jack, man (Jackman)”
Genius breaks down the line:
The bar here is a play on the phrase ‘you don’t know jack’, a colloquial meaning ‘to not know anything’. Here Jack uses a double entendre to assert that ‘everybody’ doesn’t know ‘jack’, but they also don’t know ‘Jack’ himself.
It is also worth noting that the lyrics ‘Jack, man’ is also a play on his government name ‘Jackman’. In evoking his extended name in the line about not knowing ‘Jack’, Harlow further extrapolates upon the established idea that ‘everybody’ does not know him on such a personal level.
On this album and its cover though, we finally do get to know him a little more.
Given where my personal visual tastes have taken me lately, and me fully coming around on (and often preferring) no-typography photo covers, I’m loving this one. It’s great, it fits the album better than any real art-directed studio shot ever could. Jack’s trying to dig deeper here, reveal what he’s thinking and feeling about his race, the company he keeps, the industry/culture at large, and his place within it.
The Back Cover/Tracklist
This is effective too, not straying too far at all from the front shot, continuing the same grainy and filter-heavy aesthetic. The tracklist is written out in Helvetica Black Extended, a typeface used on various peripherals from Come Home.
Featured is a shot of a massive fallen tree crushing a sporty looking sedan in the neighbourhood. Now, this could’ve been an entirely serendipitous moment that they caught on shoot day and thought, “hm yeah, this could be cool.” OR, this was actually in the budget, and they put this together themselves as a visual metaphor for leaving Come Home The Kids Miss You in the past and moving forward.
Either way, its safe to say—Jack Harlow came home.