EXCLUSIVE: DJ Mars Talks About His New Book ‘The Art Behind The Tape’

On the creative process and inspiration behind The Art Behind the Tape:
The book is titled “The Art Behind the Tape” — it’s the very first book focusing on the development of cover art as a marketing tool to sell mixtapes. It’s a self-published book, and there were three other writers involved in the process: Tai Saint-Louis, Bril Ndaiye and Maurice Garland. We worked hand-in-hand putting the project together for a year and a half consistently, but historically I started the project 8 years ago. The original idea was to shoot a documentary, but that was taking too long. The book was always going to be part of the package, but then it became an easier project to do moving forward. I knew I could do it, and I knew the marketplace needed a project like this because there’s no other book out there that fits this mold. I knew the audience would receive it well, so I just went ahead and tried to knock it out.

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