recalling back 2015 day of shooting Starboy cover my man, XO crew was stressed all way out we in the studio with Nabil and everything that could go wrong definitely did, they brought in this extra as hell 500 band neon pink cross but transformer blew second they plugged it in, whole room smelled like burnt hair sparks were flying and Abels team was already checking their watches like yeah we got forty minutes before we bounce, director was ready to call whole thing off but ya know i had to step in and im like hold up lemme cook so i ran out to my raggedy ass Honda Civic dug through the glovebox and pulled out two dusty ass pink glow sticks from a rave i went to back in 2012 plus an old blue flashlight literally taped them to a broom closet door right behind Abels chair to fake that whole neon aesthetic.

Just as Abel sat down in his leather jacket this high up suit man probably someone from XO crew busted into the room sweating through his shirt started yelling vibe changed dawg, neon look aint hitting with the hair pineapple aint gonna fit P1, we gotta chop it right now but the crazy thing is that the celebrity stylist they hired saw smoke from the blown transformer caught an attitude and straight up bolted out the back door and people were screaming bro like does anybody have professional shears?! i said man forget that shit i got something better

I ran to breakroom and grabbed a rusty bread knife and a manual can opener tied a black Walmart trash bag around Abels neck so he wouldnt get itchy, he looked absolutely terrified lowkey praying under his breath but he knew we were on a clock i started sawing away at those iconic locs and my broo the sound was nasty like somebody aggressively crunching on some stale ass potato chips right next to his ear to flatten out top and get it crisp i grabbed the janitors gas powered weed whacker and gave it one quick swipe across his head sparks were literally flying and that legendary pineapple hair which made ladies pants wet dropped straight to the floor looking like a deflated gorilla and Abel was hurting just completely traumatized but we had to get the shot immediately he sat back down put his hands on his freshly buzzed head and tried to give us that signature smolder.

 

But, um right as Nabil went to click the shutter, my cousins pet iguana which i was forced to babysit that day escaped from its cardboard box this goddamn lizard bolted across floor climbed up Abels jacket and perched right on his shoulder and i was sweating bullets trying to lure lizard down with a piece of leftover Oscar Mayer ham then Abel completely froze, he locked eyes with camera lens in a state of pure shock partly because his head was still burning from weed whacker and partly because he thought this lizard was about to take a bite out of his ear so Nabil clicked the shutter right then and there that exact look of absolute frozen horror is what yall see on the final Starboy cover we just had to Photoshop the lizard out later though. 

Story behind how we shot the iconic Starboy cover