The 8-year-old rap game portrait artist

His medium is marker, and occasionally Lego. His subject matter is rap portraiture, bold psychedelic imagery of rappers and their album art. His work has been shown at Frieze in New York and in solo shows at galleries in Los Angeles and his home base of Seattle, and he has a neat 16.7k followers on Instagram. His name is Yung Lenox, and he’s eight and a half years old.

Yung, who has been drawing since he was five, is a prolific producer of pop cultural prints: he’s made over 100. These works have portrayed a slew of hip-hop artists, including Gucci Mane, Action Bronson, and Ghostface Killah; in depicting Cam’ron, Yung not only drew the artist but also created a four and a half foot Lego sculpture of him. While other art-makers of the child prodigy variety, like Aelita Andre, produce whimsical, abstract work, Yung’s more representational art draws on his rap culture savvy.

A short, Kickstarter-funded documentary on the young artist, entitled “Live Fast, Draw Yung,” just premiered at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival this past week. Coming off of the debut, Yung Lenox’s dad Skip asked him a few questions for us. His funny, off-kilter answers are very much those of an (albeit, very talented) eight-year-old.

What's the first rap album you ever heard? Was it the same as the first rap album you drew?

Yung Lenox: Gucci Mane. Can't remember the song. (Skip: Gucci was the first he drew, but it's hard to recall the actual first rap album because we've been listening to music since he was born.)

Your work was exhibited at Frieze Art Fair in New York and you've had three gallery shows. Has that art world attention affected your everyday life at school, or do those parts of your life stay pretty separate?

Yung Lenox: Those things stay apart. 

What rapper would you want to hang out with most, and what would you two do together?

Yung Lenox: I’d like to see Waka Flaka and play Minecraft with him.

What was it like being filmed for a documentary? Are you excited to see it when it premieres this week?

Yung Lenox: Fun. It was fun mostly cause I got a lot of donut. Yeah. (Skip: He said it with a very deep voice, I am guessing that voice means he's being highly sarcastic, something I'm very used to.)

What do you like to do for fun when you're not drawing?

Yung Lenox: Play video games and sort my Pokemon. (Skip: Those are facts.)

What or who are you going to draw next?

Yung Lenox: Maybe Chance The Rapper or a Pokemon. (Skip: He started asking about Chance because he was on the new Action Bronson album.)

Have any of the rappers you've drawn reached out to you or posed with your work?

Yung Lenox: Yes. Like Cam'ron, Action Bronson, Dr.Octagon, E-40 and stuff. (Skip: I think "and stuff" means more people, but he's into the whole brevity thing at the moment.)