Cey Adams American, b. 1962

Cey Adams (American, b. 1962), New York City native and visionary artist, emerged from the downtown graffiti movement in the 80’s alongside fellow artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Adams began his art career while still in his teens, tagging “Cey City” on subway cars and painting graffiti murals to showcase his artwork.

At 19, Adams was represented by Graffiti Above Ground gallery in lower Manhattan, the first gallery to represent prominent graffiti artists. Adams was immersed in the downtown art and music scene. During this time he met the Beastie Boys. He developed a fast friendship with the band and designed their first logo, t-shirts and singles. The Beastie Boys and Adams would go on to be longtime collaborators including designing their 1998 album “Hello Nasty”.

Around the same time he met manager/music producer Russell Simmons at RUSH Artist Management, where Adams designed logos and merch for the artist roster including Kurtis Blow, Whodini, and Jimmy Spicer. A few years later Simmons along with music producer Rick Rubin founded Def Jam Recordings. It is where Adams had the opportunity to showcase everything he learned up to this point.

Adams served as the founding Creative Director at Def Jam Recordings, and along with his business partner Steve Carr, co-founded The Drawing Board, the label’s in-house design firm, where they “defined the visual culture of Hip-Hop”. The creative firm was responsible for some of the most iconic album covers, logos and advertising campaigns for Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, Public Enemy, The Notorious B.I.G., DMX, Jay-Z, Usher, Mary J. Blige, and many more.