Vancouver's Adam Hoens Wants to Fill the Gap Between Hip-Hop and Visual Art

Photo courtesy of Adam Hoens

On Adam Hoens’s enclosed apartment balcony in North Delta, British Columbia, you’ll most likely hear encyclopedic chronicles of hip hop music throughout the early hours of the day. Before Hoens, 26, leaves for his day job at the Vancouver airport, he’ll often wake up as early as 7 a.m. to work on portraits of hip hop artists—his claim to social media fame.

Hoens, a.k.a. @ndlocal on Instagram, has been a huge fan of hip hop music since he was in the sixth grade, and has been doing portrait art for even longer. Four years ago he watched a resurgence of hip hop by artists such as Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky and Joey Bada$$ and became inspired to recreate the faces behind the sounds, both old and new. When his brother convinced him to start posting his work on Instagram, the demand and acclaim for his work skyrocketed by the numbers. Today he has over 10,000 followers and is preparing his first solo art show this August.

“There’s not a lot of artwork out there for hip hop artists,” Hoens says, explaining part of why he started doing these portraits. “It’s easy to find a Beatles poster, or Jimi Hendrix or something, but there wasn’t really much for what people like me were listening to.” Hoens has painted and drawn artists like Biggie, Ice Cube, Future, Post Malone, Childish Gambino and Eminem, to name a few. When he paints or draws an artist, he listens to that person’s music exclusively. “It helps to get into that artist’s mindset and the piece comes together better,” Hoens says.

With his debut show just over two months away, we spoke with Hoens about some of the newest pieces from his Instagram that he will be featuring this summer.

KANYE

Noisey: What inspired this piece?
Adam Hoens: I wanted to have a good variety of artists [for the show], but at the same time you have to be pretty choosy with artists. I have to showcase stuff that I think the general public would like. That’s what sparked the idea for the Kanye one. It was a few days of hunting down a good picture. And when I found this picture of him, I was instantly like, that’s a good Kanye picture. Kanye is in one of my top few producers. I love him more as a producer than a rapper. He’s got the ear for it.

What were you listening to?
Mainly The Life of Pablo, since it had just come out. And all of his older stuff.

DRAKE

What inspired this piece?
I thought, who’s killing it right now? Well, Drake, obviously. I posted this the day [Views] came out. Sometimes when you time stuff like that, they do really well online. I’m pretty sure I drew it that morning and posted it that day.

What were you listening to?
Views, three times.

JOEY BADA$$

Some more progress on this @joeybadass painting.

A video posted by N D L O C A L (@ndlocal) on Mar 28, 2016 at 3:10am PDT

What inspired this piece?
Sometimes I’m just looking up pictures and not looking for a specific artist. This one I just came across, and I had never seen that picture before. It was really well shot. And Joey’s always on rotation on my playlist, I’ve seen him like three times now. I really like his music and what he stands for, so that was just one I wanted to do for myself.

What were you listening to?
B4.DA.$$, Summer Knights and PEEP: The Aprocalypse.

KID CUDI

What inspired this piece?
Again, I wanted variety. And when I think about people I have on rotation a lot, I kind of always go back to Kid Cudi. He’s definitely got unique style and I really like that. It took me forever to find a picture of him, but I found this good one that I thought might work well.

What were you listening to?
Man on the Moon: The End of Day, Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager, Indicud and a lot of his older stuff.

KENDRICK LAMAR

@kendricklamar

What inspired this piece?
I knew I had to do a Kendrick piece, just because that dude is so big right now. Everything he stands for, every interview, everything he has ever put out has been so awesome. I don’t think anyone can really say anything bad about Kendrick, as a rapper or even as a person. He’s a very positive, influential character and in my opinion he’s definitely a living legend. I got the idea from a friend of mine that I follow from California who does a lot of similar stuff to me. She did a painting of that same picture.

What were you listening to?
Mostly untitled, unmastered., a little bit of To Pimp a Butterfly. And good kid, m.A.A.d city, that project is flawless.

Social media has provided visual artists like Hoens with a much wider base for exposure than ever before, which he says is a great thing. But the reason he creates art is for his love of the craft and the music. “It’s not to get any recognition, or to earn it,” he told us. “I just do it because I want to. And I always want to get better.”

Ebony-Renee Baker is a writer from Toronto. Follow her on Twitter.