About

Mike Frost

Mike Frost grew up on the near Northside of Houston with a love for music and no blueprint for what came next. He started where most artists start — with almost nothing. Designing flyers for Houston's underground punk and rave scene in the mid-nineties, he taught himself Adobe Photoshop from its earliest releases and built his craft one project at a time.

In 1999, he turned his lens and his eye toward Houston rap. What followed was one of the most quietly significant creative runs in American music history. Over the next fourteen years, Frost designed an estimated 90% of the album covers coming out of Houston — building the visual identity of a city finding its voice on a global stage. His work touched every corner of the culture: Swishahouse, Rap-A-Lot, Dopehouse, and the artists that defined the era — Chamillionaire, Paul Wall, Slim Thug, Trae Tha Truth, Z-Ro, Devin the Dude, Mike Jones, and dozens more.

When the major labels came looking for Houston, they found a scene that already had a sound, a style, and a face. That face was largely built by Frost. His photography and design work has appeared on records that have collectively sold over 20 million copies, earning him multi-platinum credits and a Grammy-associated body of work through Chamillionaire's historic win.

Frost founded SLFEMP — his boutique creative agency — as a home for collaborative, multidisciplinary work spanning album packaging, photography, video, web development, and fine art. He is a voting member of the Recording Academy. His archive of Houston hip-hop artwork, spanning 1999 to 2009, will be permanently housed in the Woodson Research Center at Rice University's Fondren Library after the release of the book.

Twenty-five years in, the work is still the work.

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