Nobody could have predicted that the artist responsible for half the cover art on your Spotify library got his start because his mother had an inkjet printer. Feoisugly was just a kid playing games on the family computer when he decided to print out something he’d made in MS Paint, and the second he saw his own drawing on paper, something in him just went, oh wait, I can do this. He was in JSS1 at the time. He hasn’t really stopped since.
Feo consumed everything growing up, and his childhood media diet reads like a love letter to Ghanaian television scheduling. His parents had taped The Flintstones, Jetsons, and JabberJaw off Cartoon Network on VHS, and Batman The Animated Show came through on Metro TV. Tommy and Oscar, Starship Troopers, and Basket Fever were on TV3, while Code Lyoko, Totally Spies, Laureline and Valerian, and SuperBook ran on GTV. The comics he and his friends got their hands on stuck with him the most because they showed him that a whole world could live inside a single panel. “They introduced me to the informational, educational and later on the edgier side of storytelling,” he recalls. He and his friend Meeno discovered anime and manga together in high school, and the two of them started pulling apart the media they loved and figuring out how to rebuild it as their own.
By university, Photoshop had won out over everything else he’d tried, so he deferred after first year, loaded up midnight data bundles, and spent his nights downloading tutorials from Proko, Sycra, and KNKL on YouTube, cataloging them for daytime study once his internet was gone. “I had ample time and support at home to study for real and build the basics,” he says. “I’m grateful for that and look for ways to do that for others.” His entire creative education happened between midnight and sunrise on a mobile data plan in Kumasi, and the same Photoshop setup that ran off those tutorials is the one that eventually produced commissions for Gunna and Future.
His art style, the bold saturated grainy look that people associate with him, isn’t even what he prefers. “That’s crazy because what usually gets out is so fresh and clean compared to what I’ve come to realize I prefer,” he says. “There’s energy in the process that tends to get lost easily the more I chip away at a piece. Makes it feel sterile. The noise and the rough edges come with texture and I love texture.” So everything we’ve been saving and reposting is the polished version, and whatever’s living on his hard drive is more raw, noisier, and closer to who he is.
Feo found his person in Kumasi. Dopo, formerly known as VectorbyKwesi, is the creative partner who makes the already strong work sharper, and Feo’s own words say it best: “Dopo is wavy as hell. He’s the Todo to my Yuji.” If you know JJK, you already understand exactly what kind of friendship that is. It’s an unbreakable duo and both are untouchable.
“In so many ways we are alone, which means we’re together in that sense.”
Together they started what was formerly known as TwoTired, and the name came from the idea of two tires on one bike keeping each other moving forward, but the vision was always bigger than a duo. They’d both spent long enough building work that nobody around them took seriously, so they started pulling in every creative in Kumasi who felt that same isolation. “We get to bring our people, our community through collaboration,” Feo says. “The youth, the bright, the lost, the shunned, misplaced and displaced. In so many ways we are alone, which means we’re together in that sense.”
His creative process would be infuriating if the results weren’t so good. He hears a track once and the full visual direction is there, no moodboards and no sketches. “Each song opens up a realm of possibilities which could be a lot to take in,” he says. “However, focusing the lens helps to capture the essence of the music and share a fragment of the musician’s world and universe.” On more than a few of his best projects he never heard the music at all, and you can’t tell which ones. “The most important part is making sure you’re on the same page every step of the way.”
When we asked Feo which project is the most defining of his career so far, there wasn’t just one answer. Amaarae’s hazy Passionfruit Summers, Lomo Lomo for KiDi and Black Sherif, the Favorite Girl remix for Darkoo, Balenciaga visuals for O’Kenneth, both the Alté Cruise and Trotro Vibes playlist art for Apple Music, and a Gunna and Future commission that’s had permanent residency on your Pinterest board for years. “Depends on who you ask” is the response we got, and it’s the only response you’d expect from an artist with his kind of range.
Passionfruit Summers alone took three months, and the breakthrough didn’t come from some stroke of midnight genius but from the people around him refusing to let him stay stuck. “I thank God for Kaz and the rest of the team because looking back that’s what it came down to,” he recalls. “It’s easy to get stuck in my head for whatever reason of the day, but there’s a thin line between perfectionism and self-sabotage. Delivery is crucial. That’s what creating is all about.”
“I didn’t get here just because I love doing this,” he says. “It was thanks to every opportunity I was given to do my thing.” Feo loves the game and makes no effort to hide it, but exposure for exposure’s sake doesn’t interest him. “When it’s good, exposure is the cherry on top of the icing on the cake. Invest in good work, for in doing so the plug will continue to expand and serve you better.”
Work finds him the way it finds most internet-native artists: referrals lead to social media and social media leads back to referrals, and Feo isn’t about to question a good thing. “God bless the internet,” he says, and we couldn’t agree more. “The main game is to make a place for what you wanna make and go for it. That’s how you get to build, make a difference, and all that good stuff.”
“God bless the internet. The main game is to make a place for what you wanna make and go for it.”
Pharrell has been on the dream collaborator list for a while, but the roster has grown to include Tems, Skepta, Sarkodie, Ibrahim Mahama, Homixide Gang, Braa Benk, Sister Derby, Gabriel Moses, Lady Donli, and Derrick O. Boateng, and he’s still adding names. Collaborations consumed his entire 2025 and permanently reshaped how he approaches everything. “It’s exciting to know there’s a lot to be done,” he says, “and it warms my heart.”
Photography: Kwakye Godfred
Written By: HQ
