“Look carefully at these illustrations. Really take them in. Allow the imagined light play across your eyes, the power of each character stir your soul, and the minutest detail inspire wonder in you. What you are seeing is the closest visual approximation Black Essence ever put to paper. The Souls of Black Folks are ornate, complex, straight-forward, intimate, bombastic, quiet. They are pushed to adventure, innovation, repose, love, hate, remembrance… Sound familiar? 

This is not simple work, yet the impact is immediate. It’s visceral, and you will never see it all at once: there is always something new to discover in an image. I have lived with the illustrations Will made for The Unheard Mixtapes for the better part of a year, and I am still seeing something new, drawing something out of them. Observing Will’s illustrations is to engage in conversation with the artist in that moment.”

—Matthew Evan Taylor, composer, improviser, and saxophonist