An Open Letter to Thug Heaven Artists

Your paintings are monstrosities — and they’re just what I need in these ridiculous times

Image: @atomly/Twitter

Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.

Dear Thug Heaven Artists,

I just have to thank you for your contribution to my Zoom background game. It’s been a very long nine months, and I’m completely sick of video meetings — but if there’s one thing that’s gotten me by, it’s the sheer ridiculousness of y’all’s craft.

Listen, I’ll be the last one screaming on the hilltops about the disservice 21st-century skinfolk have done to General Harriet thee Tubman. Everyone from Nicki Minaj — who compared herself to Tubman a couple of years back — to OneUnited Bank dropping its Harriet Tubman debit card with a Skeletor-lookin’ Tubman throwing up the “Wakanda forever” salute just before Covid struck. Needless to say, we’ve done that woman no favors recently. She has known no peace.

That being said, I have found few greater joys than waking up early in the mornings and, while my morning coffee percolates, mining tweets and Instagram for Thug Heaven collages. You know the ones: The cartoonish, obnoxious, sometimes disrespectful memorials featuring Tubman or other Black History…