Most Outrageous NSFW Hip-Hop Album Covers Ever

Eye-catching cover art goes a long way in enticing rap fans to give an album a spin. The artwork tends to capture the essence of a rapper’s music through imagery that matches the vibe of the music they deliver. Many MCs have pushed the limits and creative boundaries through racy lyrics and they often match that energy with cover art for their projects that is definitely NSFW.

When 2 Live Crew dropped their classic As Nasty As They Wanna Be album in 1989, the four women wearing thong bikinis on the cover were the cause of widespread controversy. The conversation surrounding the extremely risqué album cover back then contributed to As Nasty As They Wanna Be being declared legally obscene by the State of Florida.

As the genre continued to increase in popularity throughout the 1990s, so did the frequency of cover art that was visually sexual in nature. In 1993, Ice-T‘s Home Invasion album cover raised eyebrows in various ways due to some of its racial undertones. However, an illustration of a scantily clad Caucasian woman being groped by a masked man stirred up so much backlash that Ice initially considered releasing the album with an entirely blacked-out cover.

Decades later in 2010, Kanye West went completely NSFW with the artwork for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, a practice he continuously adheres to as is evidenced by his wife Bianca Censori’s naked backside being prominently displayed on the cover of Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s 2024 album, Vultures 1. Outside of album artwork, the mixtape game is no exception. Both Azealia Banks and Cardi B dropped tapes with explicit covers in 2016 for Slay-Z and Gangsta B***h Music Vol. 1, respectively.

Take a look at more of hip-hop’s most NSFW cover art below.

See the Most NSFW Cover Art on Hip-Hop Albums