Music is one of the most soulful and expressive forms of art. And of course, when artists become so invested in what they want to express, symbols of what they represent and what they want to share with the rest of the world become their brand, and the very symbols that represent them. And what better way is there to show off your brand than to engrave said symbols on your very skin to flash it to the world? We’re going to talk about artists, genres and what the art of getting inked means to them.
Some musicians seek guidance in their tattoos, others inspiration for their upcoming music, and some want to represent the path they’ve chosen with music and what it means to them, and how it is a huge part of their lives.
Some rappers however, decide to take their stage names literally and paint it all over them to scream it out to the world. The best example would be Takeshi six-nine, but he’s in jail now and it’s pretty improbable for one to make music behind bars, so we’ll go with 21 savage for this one. One of the more prominent mumble rappers in his genre,
record producer and songwriter from Atlanta, Georgia is an artist whose passion and influences on his family and close friends, which is a major part of the inspiration behind his music.
Shayaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, also a musician is definitely shown by the struggles he’s gone through, the lifestyle he leads, and the loss he’s suffered on the tattoos he’s scored. Family truly is most important in his life, and he has his younger sisters’ names tattooed on either side of his neck. He also got his mom’s name, a friend’s name and his younger brother’s name tattooed on his chest with angels around them and clouds to carry them. He talks about his face tattoos with GQ too saying that when it’s a face tattoo, it really has to mean something as well as represent him. He got his first face tattoo saying ‘21’ next to his right eyebrow when he was 17 to finally start off his career and his close friend Larry was with him. This is why, when he lost Larry in a shootout, he also got ‘RIP Larry’ around his symbol as a sign of admiration and respect. And of course, finally, his most important tattoo would be the dagger right between his eyebrows. This was for his younger brother Johnny ‘Tayman’, who was killed in an attempted robbery. The dagger is something that Tayman and Savage both laugh at and have a special inside story to back it up, possibly also making them close.
Clearly, his tattoos represent his life and all the close people in it.
Rap isn’t the only genre that’s known to have some insane albeit meaningful tattoos on their artists. The genre of hip-hip and pop has it’s fair share of artists who get inked with a purpose, and to look cool, of course. Justin Bieber got his first tattoo as a seagull on his hip to represent a book that his entire family has read and taken inspiration from, as a sort of passed down virtue that’s imbibed with the book. He has a portrait of Jesus on his leg, again showing the religious values he’s learnt from family. His mom is definitely the biggest influence in his life and arguably the reason to his stardom, or at least the one who put him on said path, which is why he has her eye tattooed on his right elbow (as weird as that may be) and her birthdate in roman numerals on his chest. He also shares a tattoo with his dad, who has shown his immense support in Justin’s music. Rita Ora too has a bunch of tattoos that are inspirational, or messages and images that give hope like the dove on her neck, “love me” on her wrist and an anchor on her forearm, of course symbolic of being true to oneself with faith and love, and staying grounded in your story to success. She also has her brother’s name and her friend’s birthday tattooed on her, both of whom are very close and important in her life. One can see influences of her music in these tattoos with the themes of love, hope and family being pivotal points.
Finally, of course, no tattoo list would ever be complete without the genre of metal, of course because of it’s insanely dark and heavy music and even darker and heavier lyrics and vocals to push it as a genre whose aggressiveness never messes around, metal artists are known to go as crazy as they want to on stage, and their tattoos behind the music and their life are no exception. Matt Heafy, lead guitarist and vocalist for trivium, a band known for heavy riffs that Heafy himself writes, goes back to his Japanese roots for a lot of his tattoos, where his dad taught him to play the guitar and showed him around the works of an electric at around the age of 5 in japan. His right hand has a tattoo of the ascending dragon, an art piece by Kitagawa Utamaro, and he got it right in time for his album “Ascendancy”, and him being half Japanese, everything with regards to the tattoo fell in place from him.
Kerry king, lead guitarist of slayer, a band whose song-writing and thrash metal mayhem is definitely “not for the faint of heart”, has a bunch of tattoos on the arm that writes solos that to this day, terrifies guitarists, most representing the songs he’s done with slayer and what they mean to him. A very popular album of slayer’s, “God hates us all”, is sprawled across his forearm, and he talks about how much he liked working on the album and while the sentence in itself doesn’t have much meaning, the album does hold a place in his heart(stone cold as it may be). He also got a tattoo of a black tooth on the back of his neck in honour of the late Dimebag Darrell, who was the lead guitarist of pantera. Kerry’s first tattoo of course was the slayer eagle over his ear, and there isn’t much that looks more metal than he does, as an integral part of the band.
Corey Taylor, lead vocalist for slipknot, a band that has some phenomenally grunge-y and riff-heavy songs, is a man you do not wanna mess with when he puts on his mask with the rest of the band and goes on stage. The guy is just a plain bad-ass and his tattoos are no exception, like the dragon on his back, and a spot his son drew on his arm for the nails to go through when he’s crucified. Almost every tattoo he has is meaningful to him, and the music he loves and creates, believing in a concept of balance and duality(one of their best songs to date) in life. His most meaningful tattoos would be the ones on his leg of griffin, his son and Paul Gray, the ex-bassist of slipknot who passed away. A lot of his tattoos are around the world from when he goes on tour and takes each one as memorabilia.
To an artist, a tattoo is more than just ink engraved into your body to be left there for the rest of their life. To most artists, tattoos have significance to them, just like their art has a significance on the rest of the world. And when an artist sees the change and love from the music that they’ve made for themselves and the world to see, you can’t help but be surprised when they go ahead and make it a defining moment of their lives, permanently.
Chords & Co. 