San Diego Magazine, October 2001

   IT WAS THE MID-90’s and Kadir Nelson-then a student at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn—was home in San Diego for winter break. Nelson was an aspiring illustrator about to get lucky. A painting he had sold to a friend’s sister, who owned a gallery, wound up in the film Set It Off, starring Jada Pinkett and Queen Latifah. Nelson visited the set and met Pinkett, at that time the girlfriend of actor/rapper Will Smith.
   “She commissioned a painting from me right then,” recalls Nelson. “She and Will weren’t married yet, but she wanted a painting of Will and his son. It had to be done in three days.” The rush was worth it. Over the next few years, Pinkett and Smith commissioned other works from Nelson. This year, he illustrated Smith’s popular children’s book, Just the Two of Us, based on a rap song about a divorced father and his son.
   “The best thing about doing children’s books is that I get to relive my childhood,” says Nelson. “Those illustrations are based on my family. A lot of people went into the character of the father. The boy is pretty much me. There’s a picture where the boy is in junior high school, talking to a girl. It was kind of like that when I met my wife.” He also illustrated Big Jabe, written by Jerdine Nolen, and Brothers of the Knight, by actress/ dancer Debbie Allen. Nelson’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Sports Illustrated and The New Yorker.
    He began drawing at 3. When he was 11, Nelson’s mother sent him to spend a summer in Maryland as an apprentice to his uncle , an artist and teacher.
   “He was my mentor, and gave me a foundation in art,” says Nelson. After graduating fro Pratt, Nelson found hs way to Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks studio, where he was hired to do visual development for the film Amistad.
    How has life changed since the early days of his career? “I do magazine interviews now.” And the work—and the recognition—keeps coming.

Eilene Zimmerman

Photo by Martin Mann