We created a 2mX2x oil painting, reinterpreting the artwork "The Fall of Icarus" (1636) and used it as a media to launch a rap album. The album was embedded inside the canvas, giving life to it through AR and allowing the rapper to virtually sing an unreleased track. We consider this work relevant for Media because it used an oil painting as media in a launch never seen before in the Brazilian rap scene.

Abebe Bikila is an icon in the Brazilian rap scene. After solidifying his name in the rap business with three consecutive hit albums, he wanted his fourth album to be a tool to tackle the issues that the unbridled success can cause. 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 artificial lights from the cities. And the media insight is part of the execution: using an oil painting - the same means they used in Ancient Greece - as a media to tell our story.

Neo Icarus is an Ancient myth retold for the present. In the Greek tragedy, Icarus, attracted by the sun, escaped from the maze but flew so high that he burned his wings and fell from the sky. The universal moral of human desires and the dangers of ambition behind this myth is timeless and valid for everyone living in the metropolis of nowadays. With this project, we created an updated version of Icarus, using the same means from ancient times, but using modern tools to build an immersive experience in a launch never seen before in the Brazilian rap scene.

Abebe has a legion of fans in the rap scene, but this music genre still faces a lot of prejudice in Brazil, and spaces like museums and art galleries are usually denied to this public. So, our strategy was to put two artistic expressions together - music and painting - through technology to make art accessible to everyone. By doing that, we called people's attention to the album launch (including rap lovers, art lovers and the press), making the rapper soar closer to the sun.

To immortalise Neo Icarus, we started by recreating the artwork "The Fall of Icarus", from 1636, using the same painting techniques from Ancient Greece. 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. The masterpiece was presented in the 1st vernissage of a rap album: a 3-day exhibit at Rio’s Museum of Art, where geolocation ensured exclusivity for the visitors. Besides the oil painting experience, we created a music video with modern parallels with Greek mythology and the whole creative concept of the concert, which turned a Greek Theater play into a 2-hour rap spectacle - divided in five acts, as was done in ancient times.

The launch had some impressive numbers and made Abebe Bikila soar even closer to the sun, engraving his name for prosperity in the olympus of Brazilian rap.

+23.600 min spent inside the AR experience in 3 days

+6K visitors to the exhibit in 3 days

+52% monthly listeners

Launch concert sold out in 8 hours, the fastest rap sold out in history at Fundição Progresso

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

+80mm album plays

+1,3mm de plays in 24h

+3mm plays in less than 3 days

#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

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

A 2mx2m oil painting was the media used to launch the album, by embedding it inside the canvas. This interactive masterpiece gave the chance for the thousands of visitors to see the rapper sing an unreleased track through AR, by pointing their phones to the painting. We believe that using an oil painting for the first time as media to call attention of music fans, art fans and the press to the album launch makes this work relevant to this channel.

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.