Started with the face. slowly arranging the words to contour around the face.

 Tried to layout the background.

 Did some basic outlining for the clothes 

 Merged the first part to see how it looked like before continuing the bottom half.

I used a technique I looked up online. 

Select all > Object [Expand>OK] > Ungroup>Object[compound path>make] > bring text above image  > select al l> right click , clip mask[OK]

 Adjusted the transparency of background to show the typography better.

 Completed image.