HOST: DaBaby’s rise to stardom has been a sight to marvel.
From earning a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 Chart, to his Grammy nominations, to being
crowned the hottest rapper in the game from hip-hop legends like Puffy, it’s hard to
discredit his work ethic.
DABABY: It ain’t happen fast.
I’ve seen people pop fast, while I’ve been working and disappear before I even kicked
down the door.
I been working, we ain’t come up no easy way, we aint get on with no cheat codes.
HOST: DaBaby credits his success to his quality video production, saying quote:
And other artists like A$AP Rocky have taken notice.
ROCKY: I love DaBaby’s videos…All of em.
I like “VIBEZ,” obviously “Baby on Baby,” you know his best one is “Bop.”
JAMES RICO: The concept for Bop, I knew that we needed to make some kind of feeling of
being in a community, or you wanted to feel like you were a part of the song.
HOST: That’s James Rico, director and founder of Reel Goats, the production team behind
a number of DaBaby’s videos.
He sat down with Genius to talk about his team's creative process, working with DaBaby
and how “BOP ON BROADWAY,” was inspired by a few unlikely movies.
RICO: For some reason I thought of Austin Powers, and it was more about the fact that
people wanted to be around him in the intros of those videos.
When I see that people traveling want to be around him, that's what I wanted people to
do with BOP.
Then I remembered Rocky, and when all the kids were running behind Rocky in the street.
Both of those, just those two alone, started getting me thinking, ‘Okay, it needs to
be choreography.’
At rehearsals when I first saw the choreography, I was filming it on a phone.
It was only supposed to be a piece of the video, the choreography.
As I was filming it on the iPhone, I'm gelling with the dancers, I'm like, ‘Dude, this
is amazing.’
HOST: But according to Rico, an Oscar award winning film really brought it all together.
RICO: When I saw ‘La La Land,’ and that intro years ago, I started wondering could
there be a rap version of that.
‘That's why we call it hip hop musical,’ because it was something I'd never seen an
artist do something like that.
HOST: Rico is the front man of his video production crew, the Reel Goats.
RICO: Right now there's four Reel Goats, Spicy, Gemini and Shaq, All of them are people that
I've grew up and around.
And that's why I say directed by Reel Goats because it's, although I am directing, I'm
taking a lot of thoughts in and trying to process them. I ask their opinions because I trust them.
HOST: Most Reel Goats videos have a couple things in common - humor and spotlighting
DaBaby's larger than life persona, which allows the rapper to play a variety of characters.
RICO: I want to know what he wants to do because it's his vision in terms of where he goes
as an artist.
The best example is “Walker Texas Ranger.”
He had wanted to just do the Walker Texas Ranger theme.
I figured out, you know, what does Chuck Norris do?
He survives everything right?
PURP: You broke my nose CHUCK: I’ll fix it
RICO: Like he’s just a badass.
We just start collaborating and coming up with ideas.
We start on a whiteboard, ‘this is funny, this is funny, this is funny.’
And it goes from there.
What better way to do bad ass shit than to watch twerking videos while you drive off
a cliff.
And survive that cliff and then run into a bunch of hillbillies and then fight them off
and survive and walk away.
HOST: DaBaby and Rico go back to when the rapper went by Baby Jesus in the video for
his 2016 cut, "Light Show," off of “God’s Work.”
The pair started their working relationship by being in the right place at the right time.
RICO: Me and DaBaby met at SXSW in 2015.
A guy was yelling, ‘Hey, come check out this show
that's coming up.
Deniro Farrar's going to play there, XXL nominee.’
I ended up seeing him and he brought out Baby Jesus aka DaBaby DaBaby DaBaby DaBaby.
After the show Deniro ran off.
I go up to Baby Jesus and I say, ‘Hey yo, are you Deniro's manager?’
I was like, "I want to give him my card.
He was like, ‘Oh, no, I'm an artist too.’
And I was like, ‘Well, here's my card.’
And he gave me his CD.
Then as I drove home, I listened to both Deniro and his songs and then like instantly tried
to hit him up.
HOST: He and DaBaby have built a special bond of trust by simply believing in one another.
DABABY: Having someone to believe in what you got going on, that's willing to drop everything,
and sacrifice the way you sacrifice for yourself, that's willing to do that with you, and y’all
got common goals that's priceless.
HOST: And trusting each other allows them to play to one of their greatest strengths,
improv.
RICO: We always come in with a general idea of what we want to do and he at times will
just trust me so much if he doesn't see it.
Sometimes DaBaby comes up with some lines and these videos on these skits that are just
so ridiculous that it’s hard to write for that.
Man, who the fuck is this fat ass punk?
Fatass punk? Nigga, meet me tomorrow at 12 o'clock at the Louis store, bitch ass nigga you ain't like that anyway.
It's up there!
Some of the best moments that I’ve seen him come up with in terms of improv and acting
just naturally is from "Pony."
RICO: I had wanted to break that scene up in Pony and do a couple of cuts, and get some inserts.
But when I turned that camera around, the shot you see was like maybe take three or four.
So as I come around, you see him slip in the video and he catches himself and I hear it
and I'm like, don't fall, don't fall.
But he slips in, catches himself and dunks it!
We decided not to shoot any more of those scenes for that just because it's like, you're
not going to see any greater moment of natural acting than that.
HOST: And the Reel Goats work doesn’t stop with the “Bop” rapper.
They’re heavily involved in his Billion Dollar Baby Ent, producing videos for fellow
artists Stunna 4 Vegas and Rich Dunk as well as providing visuals for other artists like
Chance The Rapper’s “Hot Shower,” and Rico Nasty’s cut “Hard.”
Needless to say, Rico and his crew enjoyed a lot of success over the past year.
HOST: So what’s your favorite DaBaby video?
Tell us in the comments.
I’m Hillary with Genius News, bringing you the meaning and the knowledge behind the music.