Maybe winning a VMA for his video "Ridin" raised the stakes. Maybe he didn't want to be remembered as one-hit wonder. Whatever the case, Chamillionaire has stepped up big time with what's undoubtedly the most ambitious and entertaining hip-hop video of the year. Cham and director Marc Klasfeld go for laughs and social commentary, creating something that would be perfectly at home between the Chapelle Show and The Daily Show. "Hip-Hop Police/Evening News" is damn good and damn funny. And, Cham does a much better impression of a white person than Bill O'Reilly.
Marc Klasfeld, director: "The Shop Boyz 'Party Like A Rock Star' video with Universal Records video commissioner Robin Simms had been a great experience. She invited me to her office to meet Chamillionaire, who said he wanted to do something different for Hip-Hop… really different. Something with the impact of my
Scarface 'My Block' video in terms of message. Once I heard the songs, I suggested we go back to Hip-Hop's roots in social commentary. Not that there is anything wrong with a good booty video, but there is currently a shortage of meaningful Hip-Hop videos in a world that is rife with topics for rappers to discuss. I told him there is only one man we need to turn to for influence: Ice Cube. His songs and videos in the '90s were provocative and ballsy. When Cham saw Ice Cube's 'True To The Game' video, he got excited to do something that challenging. Check out that video and imagine it playing on BET today.
I said we have to dive into the N-word controversy head first. All the pundits are discussing it, but no one in Hip-Hop is. Hip-Hop needs to respond to this. So, the video imagines a world where rappers are under siege and rap is outlawed - all because Cham is misheard using the N-word by the Hip-Hop Police. Cham plays multiple roles in the video, including himself and an officer, just like it is on the track. He also plays the role of a right-wing like news show host. Putting him in 'white face' took about four hours, and the morning of the video he got cold feet about it. It took some convincing by me to get it done. We should've videotaped that motivational speech, it was pretty hilarious.
There is a lot of satirical imagery, like the SWAT team raiding Roscoe's. We combined shot footage with stock footage, a concept I had played around with on my movie The L.A. Riot Spectacular. I love the idea of not knowing what is real and what is fake — sort of like watching the actual news. We also shot a video for 'Evening News' which riffs on current events and then combined the two into like a 9 minute short film. For 'Evening News' we again took stock footage shots and digitally altered them for satirical purpose — like with what I was calling a NASCAR tank, riding through Iraq with sponsorship logos all over it.
I'm really excited about the positive reaction to the video. Robin Simms and Cham deserve a lot of the credit too. I don't want to sound like an pretentious art house Jarmusch type, but Hip-Hop could really use more vids and songs like this. They aren't selling records anyway, so why not take a shot at something different?"
--> watch "Hip Hop Police/Evening News" (full screen Flash version)
Chamillionaire "Hip Hop Police/Evening News" (Universal Motown)
Marc Klasfeld, director | Billy Parks, producer | Rockhard Films, production co | Robin Frank Management, rep | Barry Norwood, DP | Richard Alarcon, editor
