Despite the good times and party scenes for Lil Xan, there's still a circle of doom around him as this properly bleary and hazy video makes its way to a fiery end sequence.
A day in the life of Diplo ain't no different from your's, except he's woken up each morning by a harpist, has skrippers at the office, a propfessional Tweet writer and he's played in real life by James Van Der Beek.
To commemorate the one-year anniversary of their Jack U project, Skrillex & Diplo show us some of what they've done these past twelve months: playing festivals, doing half-time at a Clippers game, trips to Thailand and Machu Picchu... and a dog driving a small car. Living the dream, indeed.
Think The Biebs had it bad at his Comedy Central roast? Well, the dude gets literally smeared in this new video for Skrillex and Diplo's collaborative project, Jack U ‚ but don't worry: This will likely go further in putting the pop star over in the cool column than any roast. Fans were invited here to a gallery exhibition of nothing by Justin Bieber portraits, where they were given the green light to desecrate and augment them as they saw fit. The end results wound up in this video, which is possibly the best work of art involving Justin Bieber to date.
Jack U: “We are being overwhelmed, in a good way, by the success of “Where Are Ü Now” with Justin Bieber, so with the video we wanted to just take it back to the beginning of the record & essentially create an ode to our fans. Doing what we do, it’s entirely all about the fans. We walk a fine line by being “famous” and in the public eye but we are only here because of you, the fans. Justin wrote this record during a tough time in his life and it comes to us that sometimes, as artists, we are also just objects and we have to take that as much as we have to use that to create. We all do this for you, respect that you put us here and it’s Ü that made the video.” [via YouTube]
Don't get tricked into thinking this is just another run-of-the-mill live festival video — which is unlikely, if you're aware that Jack Ü is the umlaut-empowered EDM tag team of Skrillex and Diplo. Anarchy soon reigns with animated bursts of madness and even a short BTS moment that would earn its place on any blooper reel.
Sure it looks so glamorous with the white girl on molly, and all the money, and the clubs and the hint of danger. But, then things take a turn it's suddenly painfully clear that "Techno" isn't glamorizing or sugarcoating anything... and the danger is real and potentially deadly.
While this won't change your mind about whether twerking is artistic or offensive ass-shaking — can it be both? — there's no denying that a rotoscope animation treatment definitely makes things pop, and maybe even a teensy bit classy.
NSFW if animated nudity and rhythmic pelvic thrusts could get you fired.
Part of the Major Lazer charm is that they never quite play it straight: So, while this does come across as something close to a typical dancehall video, we also get some extra aerobic twerking and a few pet goats.
Work hard, train hard, play hard, prey hard — or, at the very least, imagine you're doing all that while you drift off into dreams. Intensity seems to be the common theme in the diverse lifestyle portraits that make up "Revolution," until a business woman straps on a neon inhaler that casts everything in a different light.
