A Peek Into the Azealia Banks 'Dazed & Confused' Cover

The Twitter-sphere lit up this week when Dazed & Confused tweeted that their upcoming September issue, featuring rapper Azealia Banks, had been banned in seven countries. And this is all before the magazine has even released an image of the cover!

Magnet artist Jill Nicholls was the set designer for the shoot, so we asked her to give us the on-set inside scoop...

Aside from originally intending to shoot Banks on a subway car with an entourage of people ("I found a subway car sawn in half," Nicholls's says), the team had to go another direction due to time constraints. Photographer Sharif Hamza decided to reference teen stars and their bedrooms instead. 

"We decided to re-create what we thought would be a good representation of Azealia's bedroom [from] 15-17 years of age," Nicholls's says. "Photo references were hard to come by, so I went on photo images of Azealia from young to present—the area she was bought up in, LaGuardia High School, her family, etc."

The resulting Dazed spread recalls the teen dream bedrooms of '90s stars like Britney Spears and Drew Barrymore; it was built and dressed to express Banks's growing persona. "I collected images from Vibe mag—going back to the 80's—of her influences. From this, I created a wall mural that sprouted from the headboard of her bed outward." (Incidentally, Banks covers the current issue of Vibe). Music photographer Jonathan Mannion also donated some images from his archive including old magazines to tear up for the wall. 

Rounding out the set are shelves covered in past loved cuddly toys with a mix of teenage-inspired hearts and skateboards. Nicholls also used fluorescent tape to draw doodles on the bed, an assortment of shiny wall stars, and false eyelashes to decorate the dressing table mirror. She also says she used a hodgepodge of candy such as Twizzlers, Gobstoppers, and lollipops.

The set was dressed the morning of the shoot, and other than a slight issue with a fellow female rapper on the mural that needed to be taken down (lips are sealed!), it all went as planned. No word on whether the "banned" content has any other countries in an uproar, but all will be revealed when the issue hits newsstands on August 16.