Dave Halili

Dave Halili
Body Count album cover, featuring artwork by Dave Halili
Born	David M. Halili (1968-04-30)April 30, 1968 Fullerton, California
Nationality	American
Known for	Painting / drawing / graphics / illustration / digital art / printmaking / textile arts / screen printing
Notable work	Ice-T album covers
Movement	Social realism / graffiti / symbolism/ urban art / street art / hip hop / b-boying

Dave Halili is a contemporary American fine arts illustrator, graffiti writer and graphic designer of album cover paintings, posters, logos, T-shirts along with other forms of representational merchandise. His best-known works are album covers for Body Count (Body Count, Born Dead), Ice-T (Home Invasion, VI - Return of the Real), The Skeletones (Skeletones Red) and Moon Ska Records compilation California Ska-Quake. An array of collaborations in the Hollywood entertainment industry and indie music scene have garnered him a Diamond record plaque, three Platinum awards, three Gold records and two Gold Europe plaques certified and registered by the RIAA.

Halili's artwork on the cover of Body Count came to symbolize the band's song "Cop Killer", which was widely criticized by the authorities, and raised questions about the boundaries between artistic freedom and censorship. This controversy, together with an executive clash over Halili's proposed montage for the jacket of Home Invasion, forced Ice-T to leave Warner Bros. Records. On March 23, 1993, Ice-T released the album with Halili's original illustration, produced by his own record label Rhyme $yndicate Records.