André Leroy Davis

ANDRÉ LEROY DAVIS; [A TRIBE CALLED QUEST]
"YA ON POINT PHIFE?" ORIGINAL ARTWORK, AND PREFATORY SKETCH FOR THE 70TH "THE LAST WORD" CARICATURE. PUBLISHED IN: SOURCE MAGAZINE, ISSUE 84, SEPTEMBER 1996.
Original finished artwork in 7H Pencil, Higgins Fadeproof Brown ink, Dr. Ph. Martin’s Water Colors and Prisma Colored Pencils on Bristol Vellum paper (9 3/4" x 12 1/8", image 7 1/8" by 8 ¾"). Signed upper right. WITH: Original Sketch, pencil on paper (8 1/2 x 11"). Signed upper right.
THE ORIGINAL ARTWORK FOR DAVIS' BRILLIANT CARICATURE OF A TRIBE CALLED QUEST, ENTITLED “Ya On Point Phife?...” PUBLISHED IN SOURCE MAGAZINE AS PART OF DAVIS' LEGENDARY "THE LAST WORD" CARICATURES.
"HIP HOP'S OFFICIAL CARTOONIST" (-Ernie Pannicioli) André LeRoy Davis rose to fame as the creator of the brilliant “The Last Word” caricatures which appeared on the last page of Source Magazine from 1990 – 2006, which “…poked fun, in the best Mad Magazine/National Lampoon tradition, at whomever the cover artist happened to be.” (Former Source writer Michael Gonzales). To be featured on the cover of Source and in “The Last Word” m
The artist recounts how depiction of Phife Dawg and Q-Tip of the legendary Hip Hop group A Tribe Called Quest playing basketball, came to be:
"A TRIBE CALLED QUEST musically could not be fucked with. Whenever they dropped an album there was collective anticipation, they couldn’t fail. Here it was that Death Row’s Suge Knight in all his red suited glory was going to be the month’s cover story, but I was asked to make A.T.C.Q the stars of the show. It would be my second attempt at capturing the essence of who they were. My first attempt in 1996 was not as successful as I expected a
Phife Dawg (Malik I Taylor) contacted Davis several years after the publication of this piece, in 2013, asking for a copy of the present caricature, and inquiring whether Davis ever designed album covers. In the course of the conversation, Phife confirmed that “Ya On Point Phife?” was his favorite of the three caricatures that Davis had done of A.T.C.Q. Phife would tragically pass away just a few years later, in March of 2016.
After earning his BFA from The School of Visual Arts College in New York City, Davis has been working as a freelance artist, supplying caricatures, illustrations and humorous illustrations for an array of magazines, entertainment venues and record companies, including Bad Boy Entertainment, Def-Jam, Mad Magazine, Mtv Networks, Marvel Comics and The TOPPS Company, Inc. He wrote and illustrated “The Last Word” for Source Magazine from September See related lot 106 for the published version of