Video for Jay Rock's first single off of his Strange Debut "Follow Me Home" is about to leave the building tomorrow for our friends at MTV. Some videos are easier than others--this one has definitely been in the "other" category, but it's turning out amazing. Can't wait to see the reaction...very different than our Tech vids of late.
Look for it soon on a television near you...
So if I set up a scene with--"Open on Compton Avenue. An extremely frustrated (and sunburning) director is pushing a broken down '62 Impala down the streets on Nickerson Gardens. The hydrolics are malfunctioning and causing the car to shift at inopportune times, causing the directors compatriots (named Blood Dawg and Killer) to laugh hysterically. The director is not amused,"--you would assume it was the premise of an Adam Sandler movie that you'd never see. It wasn't, it was my last Thursday.
Anyways, all's well that ends well. I'm back, alive, and the picture looks good, so look forward to the video in the next couple weeks...
Random Journey reference, huh. It's funny how a song puts you in a place--for me that place is that odd scene that ended the Soprano's run with most of the US checking their remote because they thought their TV was broken. But I digress...
Anyways, as most of you know, last Sunday was Mother's Day. Early in the day I was making a feeble attempt at cleaning while my wife had her annual day of relaxation--things were going good, kids seemed to still recognize me, all my shit was still there, etc., when I saw Tech's premier of "Mama Nem" out of the corner of my eye on MTV2. While watching it I had a revelation: I actually believe in what I do.
The honest truth is that our line of work is tiring. In the last three years or so the industry standard has changed to doing twice as much work for half as much money. We're the end of the line in production, so any delay in timing or screw up in financing directly impacts our work. On a personal note, before I bought Liquid 9, I had a cushy job in advertising where I did almost nothing and got paid reasonably well. 9 out of 10 days I showed up at work around 9, left around 5 and went home with a clear head. But there was always something missing...Now I'm confident that very few people would expect that working for rappers is a more fulfilling (and frankly more endearing) world than working for fortune 500 companies, but it actually is. The odd truth is that when we do something well, it helps a person succeed. When it's a good person and a good song, you can actually feel good at the end of your day. Such was the case with Mama Nem. Check it out: