The thing with Tecca, you know this is our first time working together.
We sat down and we had a long talk and I really got to get a feel for him as a person.
The whole thing that I wanted him to do was to be flat-faced the whole time and just look
into the camera because that’s just his vibe.
We were thinking of different shots and I was like I don’t wanna just have him rapping
in front of a bunch of girls on this staircase by the pool.
Like...that’s boring.
My buddy Jake would always listen to him so we were just super big on all of his SoundCloud
stuff, so we were just fans of Tecca for a while.
He was on some early Lyrical Lemonade shows.
He was always kind of in the mix of things with us.
We just watched his sound get better and develop and then it was time.
I heard “Ransom,” and I was like, “It’s time.”
When I had heard the song, and you know it has like a tropical, summer feel.
So we knew we wanted to go somewhere, we were just figuring out where.
Dominican Republic just made sense ‘cause it was pretty close.
It was only like a four hour flight.
It’s the first video in a long time where there was absolutely no concept, no treatment.
The whole budget was spent on the flights and the house that we were staying at.
I just had all my friends come and stuff so we just put the whole budget towards that
so we didn’t have any money to rent any equipment.
So I just brought my camera and we had fun.
I’ve always loved the idea of a still shot with a lot going on in the back, but our focus
of attention kind of being still in place.
I wanted to go shirtless because you know he told me how he wasn’t always the most
popular kid or anything like that.
He doesn’t have any insecurities.
He’s very content with who he is, but I knew that a lot of people that he can relate
to are.
Him just being this skinny kid I was like, “Take off your shirt.
Stand there.
Be you.”
Just kind of like, awkward.
My reason for that was in hopes that it could just let people be themselves more.
Most importantly, with everything going on in the back, and him really not paying it
any mind.
It just felt funny to me.
It just felt like it worked for this video in particular.
We knew that we wanted an abundance of women but we didn’t have any connections in the
Dominican Republic.
We kind of just asked the only person we knew and that was our Airbnb owner.
He kind of just became the casting agent for the night.
I’m a big fan of animation ‘cause I’m a huge fan of cartoons.
You know growing up, still right now I’m a huge fan of ‘The Simpsons.’
You know, super old school cartoons even before I was around.
The reason why I took the route with this animation in this video was actually an accident.
And it was really just blending different pieces of the shot together.
For instance, this shot right here.
His hands aren’t really hands, they’re more of this claw thing that we got going
on.
Just a character that I always kind of implement into my videos.
The character was actually first in one of my videos in the J.I.D J. Cole video I did
for “Off Deez.”
I was just sitting at my desk doodling and I tied in this animation.
And the same factor of like, “I’m sitting here editing.
I want to do something more with it.”
And that’s when I first drew the character.
He’s also in the Durk video I just put out.
He’s in a couple of Skies’ videos I’ve done.
Kind of makes his way into a lot of videos.
The goal is that he eventually makes an appearance in every video and you kind of gotta find
him.
I thought that this shot would be cool ‘cause I like little insert shots that are super
wide, you know it gives you a full feel of everything.
Shows you less detail of Tecca himself but it kinda of gives a better view of the scenery.
This is my best friend, Buru.
The night before we left to the Dominican Republic, someone was like, “Why isn’t...is
Bernie coming?”
I was like, “Nah...he’s not coming.”
And I was like, “Dang it would be so much fun if Bernie was there.”
And I called Bernie and was like, “You wanna go to the Dominican Republic right now?”
He’s like, “What do you mean?”
And he booked his ticket and we left like four hours later.
When we got there, like I said it was really just a free for all.
I was like, “It might be fun if you just hop in the video and have fun.
It might add some flavor.”
And Tecca was like, “Let’s do it.”
As you can see, Buru is directly behind Tecca.
It’s our first time seeing him.
Pretty aggressively dancing on this woman right here.
That particular shot actually got us age-restricted on YouTube.
After like a day and a half, a miracle worked and it was no longer age-restricted.
So this shot was my parallel shot to the wide location of the house.
I just wanted these two scenes to be a widescope where you could see everything.
I tell him, “This is your time to have the most fun and have the most movement because
we’re capturing everything.”
You’re taking up this much of the screen, so move around as much as possible so you
make sure that the point of focus of you isn’t beat by a standstill golf cart.
He wasn’t the best golf cart driver, but that kind of made for a better shot.
So the scene we see here, the only thing that I told him is that he was gonna be performing
to the camera with hands all over him.
He was having fun, like he was super comfortable with everything.
He thought it was funny.
We were really all just kind of laughing about it.
If at any point he looks uncomfortable he’s just having fun, that’s really just how
he handles things.
He’s very calm about everything so calm over, uncomfort.
The reason to blur out all the women’s faces was just, I didn’t really have a genuine
conversation with any of them ‘cause there was a language barrier.
Added this mysterious feel to it.
You know, you’re curious as to why their faces are blurred and it just adds another
mysterious element to the video.
I got super big into ‘Aaahh!!! Real Monsters’
even though that was before ‘96, so I wasn’t even really around but
I always remember seeing it.
“This looks like the perfect place for you to get a scare.”
“Yeahhh!”
“Really?
Well I was thinking there might just be a few too many humans around.”
That was definitely inspiration when I was making the character.
It was really me just sitting at my desk one day doodling.
The relatable factor of the video was one of my favorite things.
Most rappers with anything shining in their mouth is typically a grill so for him to have
braces it ties into that factor that he’s just like all these other kids and if they
want to go chase and do something and be them themselves, then go do it.
He’s super mature for being so young.
He kind of just understands a lot of things that most people don’t quite get.
And he just has a really wise scope of thinking.
You know, there’s something about those genuine projects, those organic projects
the world is listening and it just works its way out.
You know what I mean?
And that’s kind of how I felt this one did.
We were all just excited to be working.
We all just had the best weekend of our lives.
I can genuinely say that this was the best weekend of my life.
The whole time we were there, we would put on social media that we were in North Korea.
And surprisingly a lot of people believed us. So that was like the fun with it.
We came out and admitted that we were just in the Dominican Republic.