And then a girl got this on her forehead..

[gougetheeyes]

..from Kevin Campbell at Will Rise, no less! Oof... Pretty funny interview after the photos, too. Pretty split on whether I think it's irresponsible of him or just flat out fucking funny..

"The funny thing is, I didn't know who Drake was, I figured it was her hood or some shit, not some goofnugget R&B dude."

The Story Behind Drake's Best Headline Yet | VICE

THE STORY BEHIND DRAKE'S BEST HEADLINE YET

By Kara-Lis Coverdale

You know a tattoo is truly great when half the people you show it to screw their faces up and look like they’re about to keel over and puke, and the other half flat-out cry “fake”. If, like me, you’re a hip-hop nerd you’ll no doubt have seen the photo of a freshly inked DRAKE forehead tattoo that went viral on the rap interwebs this past Tuesday. Now you may cringe in disgust at the very idea of someone so clearly insane being allowed to get this done, but to me, this is just another raw and swollen step towards the day T.O. is officially on the rap map, and so fucking what if it takes a sweater-wearing ex-Degrassi kid from the wealthy Forest Hill suburb to do it? I don’t care who it is. It’s about damn time any Toronto rapper gets tattooed on someone’s face.

Yet despite how genuinely psyched I was about this girl’s near-religious expression of adoration, there were a few questions left floating in my mind; is this going to ruin her life? Who did this? Was she high as fuck one night and thought it would be a larf, or was she emotionally inspired by Drake’s soft and tender voice that touched her soul? More importantly, where are her eyebrows?

I wanted some answers so I tracked down Kevin Campbell, the tattoo artist at the L.A. shop Will Rise who is responsible for this young lady’s new look.

Hi Kevin, so who took the picture?

Norm, my boss. It sucks because the photo makes the tattoo look all crooked and janky, but it's actually pretty well applied and straight as an arrow. The other before, during, and after photos taken by my co-worker are better. But when Norm took the now famous picture, one of her shaved eyebrows was tensed up a bit, making the "A" in "DRAKE" look like dogshit. Her eyebrows were shaved when she came into the shop, btw. Her head was shaved too.

How did you react when she told you what she wanted done?

The funny thing is, I didn't know who Drake was, I figured it was her hood or some shit, not some goofnugget R&B dude.

Did she talk about what it meant to her? Had she been planning for it for a long time or was she kind of just like, "put it on my forehead" and that’s it?

Yeah, she was really psyched about it. She had the shitty font all picked out on her iPhone ready to go and was pretty adamant about putting it on her forehead. She didn't say a word about what it meant to her, some of the guys at the shop asked her, and she just kinda giggled at them. When I printed up the first image of the lettering, she wanted me to go bigger, so that it went pretty much from each side of her hairline to the other. I thought she shaved her eyebrows for the procedure, so when I put the stencil on the first time, it was right over her (missing) eyebrows, but she had me enlarge it a bit and push it up towards the hairline. But yeah, she acted as if she had planned it out for a while; though I'm not really sure how much extended coherent thought could actually go into getting such a stupid tattoo on your forehead.

Wow. Do you feel sort of bad about it after the fact?

My whole deal with people wanting completely outrageous and potentially life ruining tattoos is this: I'll ask them 3 times if they really think that it's a good idea, I tell them what the potential consequences of getting a tattoo on their face might be, and after that, the bad decision is on them. I believe that people get the tattoos that they deserve. The shop where I worked prior to Will Rise was in the center of the Harbor City Crip neighborhood, so I'm not really a stranger to tattooing gang shit on faces, which is what I originally thought that this was. I guess I feel bad that this dumbass got the name of the softest motherfucker in hip-hop tattooed on her forehead. But what makes that any less valid of a tattoo to her? I lost a little sleep over it that first night, wondering if I wanted to be known as the asshole who tattooed "Drake" on some crackhead's forehead. None of the face tattoos I had done prior to this got any publicity, so I was a little surprised that this one took off like it did. I'm still kinda debating whether or not I should send you guys the whole set of pictures, I don't really want to paint the shop in a bad light but it is what it is. In the end, she paid me to do this to her, which really means she did this to herself...

So you see it as your job to give people what they ask for?

There is a way of steering the customer in a direction that would make their whole tattoo idea something that would look better on their skin when the concept they have in their mind sounds good to the but wouldn't translate well into a tattoo. This usually comes up when they come in asking for something like a tattoo of a rose but with 20 names and dates hidden in the petals or something. When it's something as simple as lettering, I could have tried to steer her into a prettier font maybe, or a different location (obviously), but she was already set on this "letterman" font, "like the one on the jacket."

But as far as having a choice, yeah, sure, I could have turned her away, and I'm already getting a ton of flack from other tattooers for this but the way I see it, if she's got her little heart set on getting her forehead tattooed then she'll just keep on trying until somebody finally goes through with it. I think that getting a color portrait of the Joker from Batman is a dumb idea, but who the fuck am I to judge? If some cat from MS13 comes in and wants me to "blast" that shit on his chin or forehead or whatever, who am I to judge the validity of them getting what they get and where they get it? If I tattoo a huge "BK" on a Crip or tattoo "DRAKE" on some R&B crazed girl's face, what's the difference? Who am I to say which one is wrong and which is right?

Are you surprised at how quickly the photo spread?

Honestly, I didn't think this thing would get so much exposure. I'm still kinda debating whether or not it's a great idea to have my name attached to this shit more than it already is. Seeing as that I haven't really established too much of a name for myself, I don't particularly want this one tattoo to represent my whole body of work. It’s not something I’d want to write home to mom about, if you know what I mean. I've actually done some way crazier facial tattoos recently, but was just really careful not to blast the shit all over the internet. There are so many kids walking up and down Fairfax with ridiculous facial tattoos that I didn't think too much about it before I did it. Plus, the whole shaved eyebrow thing usually means you just got put on to your neighborhood or whatever, so I figured she was just some crazy shermed-out cholla that was "down for her calle" or whatever.

In my opinion this whole world's going to shit, and shit rolls downhill, so I might as well just jump in, hold my breath, and pray to G-d that there's a nice big soft puddle of diarrhea for me to land in once everything hits the fan.

I wonder what was going through her mind when she decided to do it.

Man, I wish I could get you in touch with her, I'm sure the story's pretty intense. Sadly she didn't leave a number on her consent form, just her name. But she is supposed to be coming back to finish the tattoo once it heals (she only had enough money for the outline) and I could probably talk to her then. She was on a pretty good one when she came in, and I think by the time I finished, she was coming down, because her attitude changed pretty drastically once the tattoo was finished.

[lving4today]

Yikes, he makes a valid point though on defending his behalf. Still kinda iffy, but even more what the fuck was she thinking.

[ian]

If he knew she was high, it shouldn't matter how many times he asked her. He shouldn't have done it.

[Ursula]

Honestly, I don't care how many of you are friends with or know the dude who did it. He never should have done the tattoo. It's shit like that, which gives everyone else a bad name. Doesn't matter how good of a tattooer the dude supposedly is, he just ruined someone's life. For real. Having a band tattoo on your arm or leg that you later regret is one thing. Having it across your entire fucking forehead? Totally horrible.

It kind of makes me mad that we can have a heated discussion over weather people should be tattooing hands, where most people say no you shouldn't unless it's a heavily tattooed person who you know. Yet something like this just makes people laugh and think nothing less of the guy who did it. Fuck that. Bad idea on her part, his (tattooers) part, and bad idea on whoever manages that shop for letting it happen. I already think one dude from that shop is total dick, now I kind of think that about two people there. Needless to say, I will never be taking my business there.

[Scott R]

better him than some dude with a screw driver and pen ink

[Kev]

Brings a whole new meaning to the term "duckface"

[Avery Taylor]

better him than some dude with a screw driver and pen ink

Not really. When you have an abomination like that on you it really doesn't matter how fucking straight it is. Horrible judgement from everyone involved, and I hope like hell that not only is he regretting doing it, but I hope that Norm is regretting taking the photo, and putting it out there for the world to see.

Also I have never been a big fan of the world's gone to shit so why shouldn't I just go along with it excuse. That is about the lamest shit ever in my opinion. I have made some bad decisions in my life and I don't think that I am a bad person. I don't think that doing the tattoo makes the guy a bad guy, but it was the wrong thing to do.

[gougetheeyes]

Also I have never been a big fan of the world's gone to shit so why shouldn't I just go along with it excuse. That is about the lamest shit ever in my opinion. I have made some bad decisions in my life and I don't think that I am a bad person. I don't think that doing the tattoo makes the guy a bad guy, but it was the wrong thing to do.

Too true. I suppose if I'm forced to think about it, it's a bad call. But there's still that sliver of me that thinks, "fuck it." Maybe I'm a bad person..

[Scott R]

avery I guess after all the morale stuff I am glad the girl wont have a festering infection and possibly some unbleachable disease which very well could happen if she was turned away at a shop

[Lochlan]

I saw this the other day then yesterday Luke Wessman and @Tim Hendricks posted this from their twitter accounts

[Ursula]

how about instead of the attitude that "if i turn them away they will get a nasty disease" and change it to "maybe i should try and explain to this person how that tattoo is going to actually affect their life and maybe try and convince them to get it somewhere else"

Like I said before, it's shit like this that gives everyone else a bad name. No matter how clean the tattoo comes out (art wise and health wise).

How about having some common decency, being a real human being who isn't going to purposely fuck someone up like that, even if they asked for it. Bad decision on everyone's part.

[JAllen]

haha awesome, kevin's on the board here. i don't really have an opinion about the tattoo as i do not tend to form opinions about what 2 consenting adults do. i'm a firm believer in the rights of people's person freedoms to express themselves and do as they please. i don't want society or the government or anyone else to be my parent/guardian and make my choices for me, good or bad. i got tattoos because i've rejected society and the rules of conformity so i would feel odd trying to enforce some sort of rule system about getting tattooed. i do like that there are still tattoos that evoke a real gut reaction, it's a shame that it takes a face tattoo to do that.

[Kevin Campbell]

how about instead of the attitude that "if i turn them away they will get a nasty disease" and change it to "maybe i should try and explain to this person how that tattoo is going to actually affect their life and maybe try and convince them to get it somewhere else"

Like I said before, it's shit like this that gives everyone else a bad name. No matter how clean the tattoo comes out (art wise and health wise).

How about having some common decency, being a real human being who isn't going to purposely fuck someone up like that, even if they asked for it. Bad decision on everyone's part.

Yeah, I explained to her that she won't be able to get a job, I told her that her forehead was a terrible idea, I suggested she get it on her arm, she said she didn't have any room. Cool, so I guess I should have turned her away so the shop next door could do it, and then you guys would have another asshole to be pissed at. When she comes back in a week to finish it, after that, I'm done tattooing peoples faces. Let all the other shops in the neighborhood get all the business.

What do you mean by "purposefully fucking somebody up"? It was her purpose, not mine. I didn't track her down, tell her "yo, get Drake tattooed on your face". It's my job to give people the tattoos that they want. That's my job.

[Kevin Campbell]

Not really. When you have an abomination like that on you it really doesn't matter how fucking straight it is. Horrible judgement from everyone involved, and I hope like hell that not only is he regretting doing it, but I hope that Norm is regretting taking the photo, and putting it out there for the world to see.

Also I have never been a big fan of the world's gone to shit so why shouldn't I just go along with it excuse. That is about the lamest shit ever in my opinion. I have made some bad decisions in my life and I don't think that I am a bad person. I don't think that doing the tattoo makes the guy a bad guy, but it was the wrong thing to do.

Nope, not regretting doing it. My job is to tattoo people. End of story.

[Kevin Campbell]

And calling me a total dick when you don't even know me is pretty lame, btw. I don't know who you have problems with at the shop or why, but I don't know you. You don't know me. Name calling on the Internet is chickenshit. In case you haven't noticed, vice magazine has a really good way with making people sound like assholes. The stuff I said was back and forth between myself and the writer through emails, without me knowing that it would be later be used in an interview. She contacted me to see of she could get in touch with the lady I tattooed, and ended up putting all my responses in interview form, which I suppose I should have read over prior to giving her permission to use it. But in the end, I'm not apologizing for doing my fucking job. And as far as "making everybody look bad"? To who? Explain who I made look bad here, other than myself.

[briankelly]

i'm going to agree with kevin in this debate. it's not the drake tattoo on this woman's forehead that is going to ruin her life, it's her decision making ability.

[CaptCanada]

Tack one more on the side for Kevin. A tattooers job is to inform a customer if their tattoo will inhibit their life after the tattoo is done. According to Kevin that was done, who cares if the girl was on something or not, tons of tattoos are done that way. Within our own community that know of Mr. Campbell we care, but outside of us no one will look at the artist that did the tattoo, just the finished product. It may become an infamous forehead tattoo like many from this site mug shots - Ugliest Tattoos - Funny Tattoos

Who cares, not your body and not your tattoo. People will always have some form of bad feelings towards tattoos and I say let them if they feel the need. If a stupid person gets a stupid tattoo judge that person alone, not by the whole.

[Kev]

I think Drake should send you a fat-ass tip for saving his life, because now he'll be able to see that crazy chick coming from 100 yards away.

[JAllen]

this is what i said in the other thread about this:

i thought the question was if it was good publicity for drake, haha. @Kevin Campbell man, honestly i know it's probably eating at your head because of the attention it's getting but sometimes the way shit works out isn't what we may anticipate. i don't think you did any sort of malicious act, she was an adult and in the end she has to be accountable for her decisions. you made a judgement call based on the situation you were in as well as prior experiences in dealing with this type of request (base on what you said in your interview) so don't let it eat at your head to bad. just remember that at least it's spelled right. haha

for real though, don't sweat it.

[Gregor]

I think if the girl was high on something then tattooing her was wrong. You cant make those kinds of decisions when your out of your head. Tattooing someone in a vulnerable state of mind is nonsense . Irresponsible.

[Avery Taylor]

I think Drake should send you a fat-ass tip for saving his life, because now he'll be able to see that crazy chick coming from 100 yards away.

I am pretty sure that chick isn't allowed into Canada.

[Rich Pearson]

Her decision making is obviously poor.

She will be laughed at and looked down upon for the rest of her life.

As a professional artist with some integrity she should be advised by the artist (which she was,apparently) ..

But ,then to say,‘ok ,lets do it ,that’s what you want ‘is straight down for the dollar,no matter the outcome,no worries for a fellow human.

Just a straight drug dealer attitude ‘they’ll get it from someone else,I lose out‘….’she’ll go next door and get it done badly’

In this situation ,who cares if its done badly ,it’s typical of a cheap bong shop/tattoo party scratcher studio .

Professional tattooers wouldn’t touch it as they love and respect the craft and don’t need to sensationalise and damage it.

Professional tattooers understand there are people not thinking straight walking through the door every day,a professional assesses the situation.

A good professional is busy and and does not need to make a quick buck with blood on their hands.

[Ursula]

Basically, what Rich said.

If you had any integrity as a tattoo artist you wouldn't be doing stuff like that, even if they want it.

If you're that good of an artist you shouldn't be worried about loosing the $200 or whatever she spent on it.

So yes, @Kevin Campbell, if I was you I would have turned her down and let the shop next door do it. And no, I don't know you and you don't know me, but even if it was someone I knew who did it, I'd feel the same way. My fiancé is a tattoo artist at a very respected shop and if he had done it, I'd feel the same way.

What I meant about making the rest of us look bad is - when people who don't know anything about tattooing or being tattooed see that tattoo and hear the supposed story of her being high they will assume that this is a normal thing and that tattoo artists don't care about their clients health and safety and that people are out there just tattooing horrible things on intoxicated people with no regard to that person's life. I feel like that's the type of thing that makes people scared about going to their local shop, thinking it's going to just be a bunch of idiots with face tattoos, drunk and high putting permanent marks on people. It reminds me in a way of that girl who had all the stars tattooed on her face and then when she realized how bad of an idea it was she tried to blame the tattooer which turned into a story about how tattooers will put thing on people who are passed out without them asking for it. It just seems like there's so much negative press about tattoos that adding to that pile just further hurts the industry.

[Kevin Campbell]

Basically, what Rich said.

If you had any integrity as a tattoo artist you wouldn't be doing stuff like that, even if they want it.

If you're that good of an artist you shouldn't be worried about loosing the $200 or whatever she spent on it.

So yes, @Kevin Campbell, if I was you I would have turned her down and let the shop next door do it. And no, I don't know you and you don't know me, but even if it was someone I knew who did it, I'd feel the same way. My fiancé is a tattoo artist at a very respected shop and if he had done it, I'd feel the same way.

Alright. Cool.

What I meant about making the rest of us look bad is - when people who don't know anything about tattooing or being tattooed see that tattoo and hear the supposed story of her being high they will assume that this is a normal thing and that tattoo artists don't care about their clients health and safety and that people are out there just tattooing horrible things on intoxicated people with no regard to that person's life. I feel like that's the type of thing that makes people scared about going to their local shop, thinking it's going to just be a bunch of idiots with face tattoos, drunk and high putting permanent marks on people. It reminds me in a way of that girl who had all the stars tattooed on her face and then when she realized how bad of an idea it was she tried to blame the tattooer which turned into a story about how tattooers will put thing on people who are passed out without them asking for it. It just seems like there's so much negative press about tattoos that adding to that pile just further hurts the industry.

Cool. Sorry to hurt "the industry".

[Kevin Campbell]

Her decision making is obviously poor.

She will be laughed at and looked down upon for the rest of her life.

As a professional artist with some integrity she should be advised by the artist (which she was,apparently) ..

But ,then to say,‘ok ,lets do it ,that’s what you want ‘is straight down for the dollar,no matter the outcome,no worries for a fellow human.

Just a straight drug dealer attitude ‘they’ll get it from someone else,I lose out‘….’she’ll go next door and get it done badly’

In this situation ,who cares if its done badly ,it’s typical of a cheap bong shop/tattoo party scratcher studio .

Professional tattooers wouldn’t touch it as they love and respect the craft and don’t need to sensationalise and damage it.

Professional tattooers understand there are people not thinking straight walking through the door every day,a professional assesses the situation.

A good professional is busy and and does not need to make a quick buck with blood on their hands.

The whole "straight drug dealer attitude" you speak of is pretty much how we were taught working at a street shop in the middle of a brutal assed gang neighborhood, where ghetto birds and gunshots were the norm on most weekends. I'm sure some of the rest of the guys who I worked with back in the day at Big Daddy's have some shitkicker tales that would come off sounding way gnarlier than this story. Sadly, they are involved in this forum, so I can't really tell their stories here, but look, bro. If someone comes in and wants "fuck the cops" tattooed on their forehead, back then we would turn them away. And since we were the only shop in the area, they would be back the next day, cash in hand. And they sure as fuck got their "fuck the cops" tattoo right smack dab across their noggin. If I turn somebody away now, there's a shop on every fucking corner a la starbucks, and they'll probably do the same quality of work for the same fucking price. Rent isn't cheap around here, and if a shop isn't making money, they wont exist. My job is to make money, and if you want to call it a drug dealer mentality, then so be it. As far as "sensationalizing the craft"??? Where the fuck have you been for the past 5 years? Have you turned on your fucking tv set? Fucking Animal Planet has a fucking tattoo show, for fucks sake. That's fucking laughable, saying that this shit "sensationalizes the craft". The craft has done been sensationalized, bro.