Offset has an amazing mansion.
When rappers shoot these videos with these extravagant mansions, they have the mansions
that they could shoot in, but you don't want people to invade your privacy like that.
The next challenge was finding a mansion that's gonna let you smoke a lot of weed.
The first time I worked with the Migos was when I used to be the senior producer at The FADER.
What was supposed to be a documentary for their first trip to France ended up being
a music video.
We accidentally shot a Migos video while we were in France and Amsterdam.
Then eventually we did a video with Ferg that also featured the Migos.
There's quite a few run-ins where they started becoming familiar with me.
"Would you want to write on Ric Flair Drip?"
I was like, "Absolutely."
If I do this video, Ric Flair's gotta be in it.
I feel like I'm gonna write something that has Ric Flair in it, and I'm gonna write something
that's still what you're used to seeing in a traditional rap video, but I want it to
be a rap video with Ric Flair, because he's the original rapper.
He's the original number one stunner.
With three artists you've got three different personalities.
With Offset solo, he kind of has that Ric Flair demeanor anyways.
One of the things we did was this shot is super important, it's iconic, it's a symbol
of what's to come.
This pendant, this chain inspired us also to make sure, dig up old photos, which showed
me all the robes he had.
I was like, "Okay."
I told the stylist, "Make sure we have robes for Ric Flair and Offset."
This piano scene right here is inspired by ‘Liberace.’
The art director we originally had pretty much was ready to give us this crazy, stunted-out
piano.
Last-minute location change to being that it's Atlanta made it a little bit more challenging,
so we had to make this piano in a day.
The spray paint was just drying off before Metro Boomin's about to touch those keys.
Even though Metro doesn't rap, he's just as much of an artist, just as much of a rock
star.
We had to make it clear.
A lot of people don't realize, this album is a 21 Savage, Metro Boomin, Offset album.
It's really important that we had some just role on his own, so this is his solo moment.
When you shoot one of your dream videos, you could sometimes forget the most important
element of it.
I've done videos where I'm like, "Oh man, this is where we missed the mark."
I hd to write down 50 times, "Make sure they do the woo’s.’”
When you're directing guys like these, they're already such natural superstars you could
just let them vibe out.
Just play the music and they are just in their own world.
Sometimes the art of directing is not over-directing.
This dice scene, this was originally supposed to be with Ric Flair.
Ric had just stepped out of the mansion, and then the Migos and 21 Savage showed up.
We were originally just gonna cancel it.
I was like, "Oh man, Ric's not in it."
I don't know if it makes sense.
You know what, man?
When you're dealing with the biggest rock stars, it doesn't matter.
It just always comes off different.
The good thing about this scene is though it does make it so the entire video wasn't
flooded with Ric either.
It gives you that breathing room, brings you back to the Migos’ world.
As you could see, they both have their robes on.
Originally this was actually supposed to be a role reversal.
With the role reversal, it was actually supposed to be Offset wearing the robes, and Ric Flair
was supposed to have some crazy Balenciaga and all this crazy stuff on.
These robes looked so good on both of them, we dropped that idea at the last minute.
Another thing you'll notice in this scene is a literal drip.
This was an on-camera effect.
Omar Jones, who does I'd say 80% of my videos nowadays has an editor and post guy.
He said, "You know what?"
"I don't even to do this in After Effects."
"Why don't we shoot this on camera?"
We shot the video of the video later on in the editing session.
We had a plexiglass, and we dropped little water in front of it to get that effect.
Originally it was supposed to be all the Migos toasting together.
He was supposed to make a toast, but due to schedule conflicts, I just said, "You know what?"
"Just let Ric do his wrestling thing."
I know his classic lines of "jet flyin', kid stealin'."
That's a classic line from Ric.
Only thing I changed in the script was I added “dripping.”
I wanted to make this video where it doesn't interfere, because so much people now watch
videos just to listen to the song.
I was like, "We don't want to interfere, mess with the views."
Quavo and Offset were like, "Nah, we gotta put this in the middle."
I was like, "All right, I'm cool with that."
This video came out super late versus the song had already gone platinum.
The day it came out, I was shocked.
I was like, "This is on every website."
The thing is I didn't realize that it's also sports fans watching this too.
You've got not just hip-hop fans, you've also got wrestling fans.
My dad, he knows what I do for a living, but he doesn't know all the rapper names.
He'll know a few, but when I mentioned Ric Flair he was also fanning out.
'Cause like my brother, my dad, that was our pastime activity was watching wrestling growing up.
That's how we bonded.
When he found out that I was working with Ric Flair, he was like, "Yo, you gotta make me proud with this one."
Even crazy conspiracy right-wing sites were just
like, "This is a dope video."
That's the power of the Migos and Ric Flair joining forces.