Ithaka Darin Pappas

In 2018, images from Ithaka's catalogue of Eazy E and NWA (and Fab Five Freddy hosting their first interview on Yo! MTV Raps) appeared in the book Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop and subsequent 2019 exhibit hosted by The Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles. Both the book and exhibit were created by culture journalist Vikki Tobak. The images feature a bullet-proof vested Eazy E skateboarding with locals in Venice Beach. These are the only known images of Eazy E skateboarding. In a May 2019 interview with VladTV, Fab 5 Freddy stated regarding the day, "When I did that first show with NWA—and we ended up at Venice Beach—Eazy E sees these kids skateboarding. And Easy goes and jumps on a skateboard. And he’s holding his own skating around in Venice Beach… You just wouldn’t think of the quintessential architect of a lot of the gangster rap energy being able to get on a skateboard and do his thing at that point in time. This was like ’89."

In February 2015, the F+ Gallery in Santa Ana, California (founded by Micah Kersh) hosted an all-insect art exhibit entitled "Aliens Of AkahtiLândia". The exhibit featured over forty original sculptures, photo, and mixed-media works by Pappas; entirely inspired by insects he had observed and photographed on his small art ranch called AkahtiLândia located in the rural, jungle area of the municipality of Mongaguá, Brazil. Six guest creators were invited to do individual interpretations of some of the insects: David Clyde Kersh, Erica L. Ellingson, Ian Morris, Nathan Paul Gibbs, Will Thompson, and Steven R. Kutcher. The opening event also included a live presentation by actress/insect handler Diana Terranova who encouraged attendees to participate by petting and even holding exotic arachnids such as tarantulas and Thelyphonida.

In 2011, indie label Sweatlodge Records released Fishdaddy Flashbacks highlighting some of the artist's songs from the beginning of his career in 1994 until 2011. In early 2013, Pappas produced his first all-instrumental album, Voiceless Blue Raven. He also collaborated with the trip hop vocalist Cyncy.

His abstract photographic art and body of sculpture work known as The Reincarnation Of A Surfboard have been exhibited globally, by The Camp in Costa Mesa, California in June 2010, Gallery Alma Do Mar in São Paulo, Brazil in October 2010, WOA-Way Of Arts in Lisbon, Portugal in December 2012, Hurley International in Orange County, California in October 2013, and F+ Gallery in Santa Ana, California from February to March 2015.

Between 2010 and 2015, the artist created most of his musical, photographic and sculptural works at Recanto Akahti, his small ranch in rural South America located on the edge of the Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica) in AkahtiLândia.

In addition to creating music, his short story series entitled Fishdaddy Chronicles has appeared in international surfing magazines including Surfer, The Surfer's Journal, Water, and Transworld Surf. In 2009, his short story "Miracle At Malibu" was published in the book entitled Surf Story, a collective volume of stories and surf culture compiled by Robb Havassy.

In 1999, Samsung used a version of So Get Up (remixed by the UK Breakbeat duo Stretch N Vern) for a printer advertising campaign featuring Jun Ji-hyun. According to most media sources the commercial transformed Jun into a teen icon in Korea (today Jun is one of the most highly paid and most awarded actresses in all of Asia). The commercial, produced by Cheil Worldwide in Seoul, reportedly did not credit or pay either Pappas or Stretch N Vern.

In 1998, after over six years in Portugal, Pappas returned to California where he recorded his third album called Somewhere South Of Somalia with producer Conley Abrams III. The lyrics from this album were written on a two-month journey into East Africa. Later, in Rio de Janeiro he recorded two more albums, Recorded In Rio and Saltwater Nomad. In 2007, he briefly returned to Portugal to record with former Underground Sound of Lisbon member DJ Vibe, providing vocals and lyrics for the track "You".

During his active years in Portugal, the artist's musical projects were nominated for a total of nine Pemios Blitz (the Portuguese equivalent of the Grammy Awards) including; Best Album (for Flowers And The Color Of Paint in 1995 and Stellafly in 1997) and Best Male Vocalist (in 1995 and 1997). In addition, the prestigious national newspaper, Publico, awarded his 1997 release Stellafly as "Album Of The Year" and considered a song from the record Seabra Is Mad as both the "Song Of The Year" and "Video Of The Year". Publico also cited his debut release Flowers And The Color Of Paint as one of the country's Ten Most Influential Albums Of The 1990s.

In 1994, "So Get Up" was nominated for "Song Of The Year" at that year's Blitz Awards, and later climbed to 8th place on Billboard's UK Independent Dance Charts (and 52nd on Billboard's U.S. Independent Dance Charts). More than twenty years after its original release (with at leased 1,029 released remixes of the original vocal), "So Get Up" was deemed by Guinness World Records as being the most remixed vocal a cappella in musical history.

In 1993, Pappas wrote and recited a poem called "So Get Up" for his weekly segment on a radio program called "Bairro Quatro " on Rádio Comercial in Lisbon, Portugal. He later made an electronic musical version with a friend from Manchester, UK. A year later, he re-recorded it as a 'guest performer' to be the primary vocal of a B-Side single for the Portuguese dance music group called the "Underground Sound of Lisbon." The song became an instant national hit and was later released internationally as a ten-mix, double vinyl set on New York's Tribal Records (a subsidiary of I.R.S. Records/EMI). The song climbed to 8th place on the Billboard's Independent Dance Music Chart for the UK—and number 52nd in the United States. Since 1995, the song has been remixed by many artists such as Fat Boy Slim, Junior Vasquez, Danny Tenaglia, Miss Kittin, Armin Van Buuren, and Cosmic Gate, and has appeared on over 350 compilations with combined sales/downloads in the tens of millions. Ironically, the song which was considered the first modern "Portuguese" musical export was released without even crediting Pappas, even though he was the primary publishing rights owner of the track and never a member of the Underground Sound of Lisbon project. Reportedly no actual record royalties were ever paid to Ithaka.

Documented uses of Ithaka's vocal & poem, "So Get Up" (1993) in modern music have appeared under varying titles. The poem was originally recorded for Radio Antenna 1 in Lisbon, Portugal. However, most musical versions stemmed from uses/sampling of the a cappella version that he recorded for Underground Sound of Lisbon in Portugal, 1994.

In Lisbon, he recorded his first two hip hop albums, Flowers And The Color Of Paint and Stellafly. His song, "Escape From The City Of Angels" (featuring Marta Dias) appeared on the soundtrack for Columbia Pictures' feature release, The Replacement Killers. He is also the lyricist/vocalist of the 1992 vocal-poem "So Get Up", which has been remixed by several international electronic music artists such as Armin Van Buuren, Cosmic Gate, Danny Tenaglia, DJ Vibe, Fatboy Slim, and Meat Katie.

In 1989, while living in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles, Pappas began one of his major art projects, The Reincarnation Of A Surfboard, a large body of contemporary sculpture work created using recycled surfboards as raw building material and repurposing them into contemporary wall-mounted art pieces. The series to date, which is said to contain an estimated three hundred full-sized sculptures, has been exhibited on four continents and featured in hundreds of magazines and on many TV features. The most recent solo exhibitions of these works were hosted by Hurley Clothing in Costa Mesa, California in October 2013 and WOA: Way Of Arts in Cascais, Portugal in December 2012. He has been active with this medium since its inception; with additional individual pieces made in Mexico. In December 2012, during an interview piece regarding his solo showing of surfboard sculptures at Gallery WOA in Lisbon, Fuel TV Europe declared that Pappas was "The Godfather of Contemporary Surf Art". Works from this project appear in the private collections of international surfing celebrities and Hollywood production companies. In Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin's non-fictional book entitled, I'll Scream Later, she says of Ithaka's work with The Reincarnation Of A Surfboard project, "He turns surfboards into art, seriously".

Perhaps the most well-known commercial photographic works by Pappas are his early images of the influential Los Angeles Gangsta rap group N.W.A.. Pappas worked for their West Coast record label Priority Records between 1988 and 1991 and documented almost the entire lifespan of the group, from their South Central beginnings, stardom, and eventual disassembly. The pictures from these early sessions, particularly The Miracle Mile Shot, which features all five members of the project photographed on a white backdrop at Pappas' own apartment in Los Angeles, has been printed in Rolling Stone, Q magazine (UK), The Hundreds, Blitz Magazine (Portugal) etc., and was used as the primary backdrop for the entire NWA segment of the 2016 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Brooklyn, New York. That same image also appears in the 2017 HBO documentary, The Defiant Ones, about Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine directed by Allen Hughes.

Ithaka Darin Pappas (born July 8, 1966), often known simply as Ithaka, is an American sculptor, painter, photographer, songwriter, vocalist, hip hop artist, writer, poet, record producer and surfer of partial Greek descent. His visual work has appeared in exhibitions at the International Center of Photography in New York, The Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, Musée d'Art Contemporain in Marseille (France) and São Paulo Museum of Image and Sound (Brazil).