Hector de la Vallée is an illustrator that has worked with a lot of musicians. He makes off the wall animated music videos where things emerge from underwater just for the moment until an ugly bat sucks up the entire sea with a straw to leave you with skeletons. He collaborates with his friend Octave Abaji who animates his drawings for the videos: “We eat waffles, drink, listen to rap while we working.” Hector also creates album art and posters. He designed one for the RL Grime EP recently and is real specific about it: “It's not a dog, it's a mummy who has been bitten by a werewolf.”
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How did you end up working on the RL Grimes cover? What was your decision in picking the dog?
Ryan hemsworth liked what I drew for Purebakingsoda and fusilsapompe (a french label I lead with a few friends), and he asked me to make a video for him .
Three months ago, Ryan's manager asks me to do a poster for the Infinite Daps Tour with Ryan and RL Grime. After this, he asked me if I can do a cover for a Chief Keef remix by RL Grime and finally for the RL Grime EP.
The website Pure Baking Soda is in french so I couldn't understand most of it. Are the artworks on the site all your work?
No, I made the one for the article about Gucci Mane and the one about Brick Squad. We also have some special collab like bootleg covers and we began a fanzine collection this year, the first one came out in March (still available in English and in French).
Can you tell me more about the fanzine?
“Cooking by the Book” is a project I made with PureBakingSoda, les Editions FP&CF and the graphist Guillaume Grall, a friend of mine. I drew for a lot of PureBakingSoda's articles, and we though it was a good idea to have a “real object”, like a book. Something simple, but very 'graphic'. We made the first issue on the early years of Outkast and the Atlanta rap scene, in French and translated in English. We will work on the next issue soon. We hope it'll be ready for a release before the end of the year.
Do you like illustrating more for musicians or would you rather create comics and zines and other type of art for exhibition etc?
I like to work with musicians. It gives me a greater exposure than making collections of drawings. It's been a long time since my last exhibition. Close to my heart, I also have a child book project that I'll try to do before the end of the year.
