Ferg Unmasks Darold Brown the PainterInside the SoHo loft where the rapper trades verses for brushstrokes and reveals the man behind the monikers.By Keith Estiler
Up a narrow stairwell in SoHo, past a black metal door and into a clean white loft, Ferg is doing something he hasn’t done in a long time: slowing down. The space is bare. No crew, no clutter, no chairs. Just two rooms. One for painting, one for music. It’s quiet, focused, built entirely for the work.
We got the first look inside as he prepared CHOSEN, his debut solo exhibition. The title says a lot. There was no gallery hand-holding this one, no splashy art-world PR campaign. Though, Ferg worked with the expert curator Anne-Laure Lemaitre and Larry Warsh of No More Rulers to bring his vision to life, this presentation was something largely personal. It resulted in a body of work made by Darold Brown, not for the culture, not for approval, just for himself.
That shift started with the cover of DAROLD, his latest album. Instead of calling up a designer or photographer, Ferg decided to paint the cover artwork for the album himself. It ended up being his first-ever self-portrait. Raw and vulnerable. That cover image set the tone for the entire album and for CHOSEN. “It was the first time I really looked at myself that way,” he said.
“That was the first time I ever felt like my art was worth something.”
What CHOSEN makes clear is that Darold the painter has always been there. Before the records, before the tours, before the world knew his name. His earliest memories of creating go back to Harlem, sitting in a barbershop with his father. “I was drawing in my notebook while my pops was getting his haircut,” he said. “He grabbed my sketches and started passing them around the shop. That was the first time I ever felt like my art was worth something. He made me feel like what I had was real.”
That encouragement stuck. He went on to attend art school as a teen, developing a visual language before he ever recorded a track. Music took over fast, but the love for painting never left. The pandemic gave him the time and space to return to it.
In his SoHo loft, the two sides of his artistry momentously sit side by side. One room for sound, mics, speakers, a laptop with open sessions from DAROLD. The other, stripped down and clean. No distractions. Just walls, canvases, and floor space to move. From figuration to abstraction and even mixed media, the works encompassed a range of different styles and mediums, reflecting his multidisciplinary approach. While the paintings in CHOSEN are embedded with labored technique and theory, they’re rooted in honesty with memories stretched into form.
The work itself pulls directly from the emotional core of DAROLD. Some pieces are quiet and contemplative. Others hit like a verse. There’s a physicality to them, brushwork that feels like it was done in the middle of a thought.
“It’s about going back to what I’ve always had. This is who I’ve been.”
One painting, “French Tips,” captures that spirit completely. It’s a portrait of his mother and a reference to a lyric from the track of the same name. “That was the first time I saw a woman with French tips,” he said. “It shaped how I saw beauty. How I saw women. It all started with her.”
His mother’s presence runs through more than just that piece. The idea of family, especially the influence of his late father, is woven into every brushstroke. CHOSEN isn’t just about the self. It’s about lineage, about returning to what was passed down. And for Ferg, that also means returning to the parts of himself that never made it into the music.
There’s a quiet confidence in how CHOSEN came together. No attempt to break into the art world, no flex, no gimmick. Just Ferg in a room, telling the truth with whatever tools are in reach. And for someone who’s lived a life constantly in the spotlight, this pared-back version of Darold feels like a rebellion in itself. A moment of returning to who he always was.
“This isn’t about becoming something new,” he said. “It’s about going back to what I’ve always had. This is who I’ve been.”
Photography by Keith Estiler for Hypeart.
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