[The Roots]; Tom Huck

From the private collection of Jay Stewart

ONE OF 100, LIMITED EDITION LITHOGRAPH PRINT FOR THE ROOTS' 5TH STUDIO ALBUM, PHRENOLOGY

Released in 2002 on MCA Records to immediate critical acclaim, Phrenology is the fifth studio album by Hip Hop band, The Roots. Phrenology remained on the Billboard charts for 38 weeks following it's release, peaking at number 28 and was certified gold on June 3, 2003 by the RIAA for shipping upwards of 500,000 in the United States.

With a title derived from the debunked racist pseudoscience popular in 19th century, Phrenology's cover art—designed by artist and printmaker Tom Huck—riffs on the woodcut anatomical diagrams used in the actual study of phrenology, updating the "faculties" (the innate regions of the brain according to phrenological theory) with a list of items specific to the band.

A limited edition lithograph print produced for an in-store exclusive at the Virgin Record Store on the Sunset Strip that took place about 2 weeks after the album's initial release, the print on offer here is one of 100. If you were one of the first 100 to buy a CD that day, you were rewarded with a print. The print's design expands of Huck's original cover artwork, placing in-profile portraits of all six members of the Roots into a horizontal matrix with the Phrenology head.