Abebe Bikila is an icon in the Brazilian rap scene. After three consecutive hit albums, the artist wanted his fourth album to be a tool to tackle the issues that the unbridled success can. Our challenge was to launch his new studio record with the mission of surpassing the high expectations from fans after emblematic prior albums and with the arduous task of overcoming Brazilian rap icons in a very competitive race to the top. To do so, Abebe wanted to expose his personal struggle with success by making a parallel between our toxic ambition towards the top and our instinctive attraction towards the bright artificial lights from the cities.

Neo Icarus is an updated version of the classic Greek myth. The project included a 2mx2m oil painting, embedded with the album and allowing the rapper to sing an unreleased track from the album through AR, a music video using parallels from Greek mythology and the launch concert, that turned a Greek Theater play into a 2-hour rap spectacle. The launch had some impressive numbers:

+52% monthly listeners

Launch concert sold out in 8 hours

7 out of 13 songs from the album on Spotify’s Viral Songs

+80mm album plays

#1 Album on Deezer

#2 Trending Topics on Twitter

Top 50 most listened albums in Brazil on Spotify for 3 months and going

Top Albums on Apple Music

+34,7mi videos plays on Youtube

+23.600 min spent inside the AR experience in 3 days

+6K visitors to the exhibit in 3 days

Fan arts and even tattoos were made of the album cover and painting

Neo Icarus is a Greek myth retold for the present. To immortalise this retailored metaphor, we used the same means from Ancient times: we created 2m x 2m oil painting reinterpreting the artwork "The Fall of Icarus", from 1636. The album was embedded in the canvas, giving life to it through AR and allowing the rapper to virtually sing an unreleased track from the album. And to make this possible, we used motion capture and LIDAR technology.

In his fourth album, Abebe focuses on his own experiences in Rio, but in a way that anyone from any metropolis in the world could relate to. And in the rap scene - especially in Brazil, where this growing music genre still faces prejudice - museums are spaces usually denied to this audience. So, when the exhibition took a marginalised youth to an important museum in Rio, we could help to make music, art and technology accessible to everyone and denounce contemporary tragedies.