Interview with Todd James [ Conducted in August 2026 ]

He created the ultimate fan favourite design for the Beastie Boys ... the legendary Brooklyn Dust Elephant.
We are truely honored to have a small chat with Todd James to get some insights...

Let's start with your original connection with the Beastie Boys. How did that come about? We heard you first met Adam Horovitz and Dave Scilken in 1983?

I met Dave Scilken and Adam Trese on 8th street and 6 ave which was a hang out spot in Greenwich Village through Jason carpenter; it could have been 82 but certainly 83 and later met Adam.

The Beastie Boys have famously worked with a few other big names in the graffiti scene (Cey Adams, Eric Haze...), name-dropped Vaughn Bodē and even sampled "Wildstyle" in a track. Do you think that admiration came from growing up in NYC or was there something else about it?

It’s both, They hung out with Cey at Dancerteria and other night clubs and Haze as well so they knew them personally. Wild Style and Vaughn Bode’s art are New York cultural references in their orbit.

Looking back, what pieces of Beastie Boys-related artwork are your favourites?

This isn’t my art but I love the cover imagery of “Licensed to Ill” the plane crashed into the mountain but in an impossible way and it looks sort of like a cigarette that’s been put out. The painting is comical and conveys what the album and band were about at that point.

Did you have free rein in the designs or were there guidelines given?

Most design work had guidelines but the animation for skills to pay the bills was pretty much free Reign for myself and Wolf.

[Wolf One (WOLF 1) was part of the early NYC graffiti scene and is called out on the track 'AWOL'... "Wolf-One, what you gonna do?"]

Was there a particular member who was most involved in visual decisions?

MCA

Were there any ideas or artwork concepts that never got used?

No, well there was animation Ghost was doing for “Skills To Pay The Bills” that he never finished so it wasn’t included.

[Ghost being a famous NYC graffiti writer from the RIS (Rockin' in Style) crew and also known as Cousin Frank]

Let's go with some urban legends...  Back at the 1992 Roselands show the Beasties played "High Plains Drifter" and dedicated it to you because you had apparently had a run in with the law the night before. Do you care to elaborate?

I will leave this one a mystery

Now, we're going to delve into nerdy fanboy territory here, but did you do the animated segment at the beginning of the Skills to Pay the Bills home video with the animated elephant?

Myself and Wolf drew it in my living room, this was pre digital, so we drew it all with makers on paper and had it shot frame by frame.

We also heard you might have done the artwork on the Licensed To Ill skateboard?

No

What's the story behind 'Brooklyn Dust'?

Here is text I have on that that’s included in Beyond The Streets... In 1987, after the success of Licensed to Ill, the Beastie Boys hired Dave Scilken (Shadi CK) to design a logo for their new production company “Brooklyn Dust Music”. Dave was designing the logo’s composition and type, and he wanted me to draw the logo’s mascot, which was described to me as “an elephant high on dust, sitting on a couch.” I was only seventeen years old at the time and was psyched, this was my first real paying art job where an actual invoice was involved. We did everything analog, by hand, this was the pre-computer era. We had type set and an elliptical shape made, then we cut and pasted the elephant illustration into the composition and shot everything on a stat camera. The Beastie Boys were at the height of their fame, they were great clients to have and creating this logo helped generate more work for both myself and Dave. The actual logo did not appear anywhere until about two years later, when Paul’s Boutique came out. It was reproduced very tiny inside the record. During that subsequent tour it began to show up on merch and then became the graphic for the stage’s back drop during concerts, cementing it as an iconic visual associated with the band.

How many variations of the Brooklyn Dust elephant are there?  We know of the classic one but also a drunk elephant version used on a promo cd ("Frozen Metal Head")

I’m not sure but I like that its taken on variations. Think I drew a few other things where the elephant was doing other things like on t shirts etc.

The Beastie Boys are obviously remembered as musicians. When you knew them, did they feel more like a band, or more like part of a larger creative community?

Maybe a group that was part of a larger community

You're working in a bunch of mediums, not just print related (eg ceramics, computer graphics...)  What's your favourite to create with?

Drawing

You designed the Source magazine log, created album covers for DFL and the Mo'Wax "Now Thing" compilation, worked with Kaws on a sculpture set, created a U2 video clip, and worked on Crank Yankers. That's a pretty crazy selection of works.  What are you most proud of?

Theres been a lot, I’m not sure which I’d say proud of but the Brooklyn dust logo means a lot being one of the first things I did professionally and that I made it with Dave who’s no longer here. I feel like it holds up even though it was early work.

So right now you're at Beyond The Streets in Paris with a who's who of graffiti and artistic legends. What can you tell us about the huge Dusted Elephant there? We also noticed it had Dave Scilken's tag on the wall behind it.

Yeah I put his Tag there next to the sculpture I wanted to make sure he was credited. They decided to include it in the exhibit, and we went back and forth during the process and the guy doing the 3d Modelling did a great job.

Any thoughts on the recent announcement on the restoration of G-Son?

I wasn’t aware

And finally, how do you feel about the stack of young people that have your designs as tattoos?

It’s pretty cool, I was once with MCA and Sue Kwon at a rave in the 90s and this guy showed us one he had.