You Can Get Toronto’s Best Rappers On Shiny Pokémon Cards & You’ll Want To Catch Them All
Drake, I choose you!
Were you ever deep into Pokémon cards and trading with friends for their shiny holographic cards? Are you the type to collect all sorts of memorabilia of your favourite musician? Well, these rap trading cards might literally make your day.
"I was seeing other people make things like that, and I have been using Photoshop since I was in seventh grade, like every day, so I was like, 'I guess I'll take a stab at it,'" the artist behind Rap Trading told Narcity.
Rap Trading kicked off as a quarantine project last May which has turned into almost 350 cards available to order, according to the Boston-based artist behind the project who asked to remain anonymous. The cards range in price from US$15 for a single card to US$150 for discography packs and are available for purchase from his Space Jam-themed website.
Toronto's very own Drake and The Weeknd are some of the many artists featured on the holographic cards, on top of smaller-scale artists like Denzel Curry and household names like Billie Eilish, too. There are also discography booster packs that die-hard music completionists can cop.
Rap Trading uses real holographic Pokémon cards as the base of each trading card, which he finds by "scrounging through eBay listings from collectors trying to offload their holographic cards and [finding] them in huge, huge, huge lots."
The moves and attacks on each musician's playing card might look familiar to fans, too.
"I'll listen to an album and pick out songs that I like," Rap Trading said. On Drake's Views card, for example, "Hotline Bling" is one of the moves a player can make: "Ever since Drake left the city your opponent got a reputation for themselves, distracting them this turn. He attacks twice this turn."
Music stans can work their way to collecting all their favourite artist's cards and can likely expect new cards to release when a musician drops a new album. This could happen soon for the Weeknd since he's been teasing new music on his Twitter and just dropped the single "Take My Breath" on August 6.
"When that project or whatever that it is comes out, then I'll make one of those cards. And then people that have all of the other albums, they have to collect the new album," Rap Trading said. "It's cool to see that develop."
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.