Two GOATs: Tillavision and Chief Keef NFT Collab Sells for $30K

We’ve had our eye on Tillavision for a while, minting him our favorite designer in all of virtual culture. No, that is not 🧢.

Now, he’s minted something else: Chief Keef’s first ever digital collectible.

Selling for just below $30,000 on SuperRare this month, the digital piece, called “Gotta Glo Up To Grow Up,” is an animated video blending the worlds of music videos and vinyl collectibles with Tillavision’s trademark luxe virtual vibes for an Edition 1/1 animated video.

And Tillavision, the 3D animator and director known for everything from avatars to AR filters, is poised to become the first breakout crypto art star to emerge from hip-hop.

Working in collaboration with toymaker and Glo Gang Worldwide founder Colourful Mula plus the 3D character designer Cattyum, Tillavision helmled an instant classic piece of virtual culture.

In the piece, 38 seconds of weed-soaked mayhem and mischievous shenanigans on an infinite loop, Chief Keef and two sunflower-headed friends ride ATVs to a gun range inside a toy store and terrorize the streets of what looks like a European city.

And in what must be a chills-inducing moment for the visionaries over at SuperRare, Keef himself shouts out the rising powerhouse brand by name in crypto art sales.

“This would be the perfect opportunity to expose Cryptoart to a new audience while bringing our vibe to SuperRare,” Tillavision says.

That vibe is a combination of candy-colored psychedelia and menacing aggression, film that perfectly matches the twisted circus sounds of a familiar Keef collaborator like Zaytoven and Keef’s gruff grunts.

But what sets a piece like this apart from the visuals that usually float around social media to promote new music is the horsepower.

Like an exotic supercar, the 3D animations and modeling are sleek and luxurious, swaddling the viewer in soft textures and an expensive sheen.

“I used every bit of the 50 mb SR allows,” Tillavision says.

Purchased by VC investor Bill Lee, “Gotta Glo Up To Grow Up” is the first animation to sell at auction from crypto art early adopter Tillavision.

But Tillavision’s already hyping his next NFT, a Warhol-inspired animation of the iconic Campbell’s soup can being served by a Christie’s robot, clearly referencing the current crypto art craze and the upcoming Beeple auction at the famed art institution.

“We made history and it’s not a mistake the video starts with an exploding canvas,” Tillavision says of his Chief Keef piece. “We’re creating something new.”

He would know. He’s been early to everything in hip-hop visuals over the last decade, creating some of the earliest 3D animations in the space while working at Rumfoords favorite Livemixtapes.com in the early 2010s.

Since then Tillavision’s become the go-to 3D animator for hip-hop and streetwear, two worlds dying to break into the virtual aesthetic since the pandemic slashed budgets and shoots, especially his work for Drake, “WAP,” Juice WRLD and Chinatown Market.

〰️ We’ll keep our 🧐 eye 🧐 on whatever he does next. 〰️