Watch Logic Revisit The Basement Studio From His 'Under Pressure' Album Cover
Logic is a rap star now, but that wasn't always the case. Before the Gaithersburg, Maryland MC was selling out tours and turning heads selling tons of his debut album, he was crashing on a friend's couch trying to make his dreams into a reality.
That's where Logic got the inspiration for his Under Pressure album cover.
"There was a point where I didn't have a place to stay, so Lenny let me live with him because I didn't have anywhere else to go," the rapper explained to MTV News when we visited his old Maryland haunts in October.
Logic and Lenny -- or Big Lenbo, as he is more commonly known -- met outside of one of Logic's first performances in Maryland. They became friends and after a couple of years ended up living together in the basement of Lenny's family home. Logic didn't have a job, and focused on music full-time; Lenny's family gave him a year to get it together or he would have to leave. The timing couldn't have been more perfect.
"Almost damn-near to the day I signed with Def Jam; and [Lenny] quit his land surveying job of 12 years and we moved to L.A. to work on the album," Logic said of the life-altering signing back in 2012.
Logic released Under Pressure on October 21 with Visionary Music Group and Def Jam, and in the LP's first week of release he sold over 72,000 copies -- an impressive feat for a new artist with little to no radio presence. Still, even with all of his success, Logic can't help but think back to Big Lenbo's basement, where he recorded most of his pre-album material using pillows to help sound-proof the makeshift studio.
"We couldn't create a booth and I didn't have enough money to pay for a long enough wire to stretch to anywhere," he explained.
To properly capture the scene, Logic reached out to New York-based illustrator Sam Spratt. "I gave him different pictures of what it looked like... and then from there he pretty much outlined everything," he said. "I think I knew after I created 'Under Pressure,' the song, that gave me the idea for the album cover. Because the entire album is about the come-up and [much] of it does take place in the basement as well, and that time."
