J Cole. He’s like number one for me. When I was a sophomore in high school, I went to see him in Holmdel at the PNC Bank Center. It was part of his Forest Hills Drive tour. He sold out the show, and I’m pretty sure it was my first hip-hop concert. While I watched his performance, and his songs resonate with people who literally were crying around us, it was basically the moment where I realized this music thing, like I need that sh*t. I was just blown away by the impact he had just being on the stage, and that became the turning point for me. So that’s a huge reason why he’s such a big part of who I am has an artist.
As far as the inspiration for the video goes, what happened was, I believe it was an SNL skit. We saw somebody imitating and impersonating Donald Trump with his voice, but his face deep fake like Donald Trump. So it really did look like Donald Trump speaking, talking and moving around. He was saying crazy, reckless things about other countries, but it was a real negative vibe that you got from the video. So me, my manager and his assistant at the time, Jason Yang came up with the idea of using that in a positive way, and emulating the faces of me being artists that inspired me directly. But then, after talking with the director, who was going to be doing all of it, he brought up the idea of maybe, not do artists that are completely just who inspired only you. Maybe talk about the artists, or show the artists who you might not even know all of their songs, know all of their albums or all their biggest hits, but you know the impact they had. So, that’s what brought the idea of having artists like Rakim and Missy. I never grew up listening to them, but I’ve done research and I’ve watched the Netflix documentaries on everything. I realized there is so much more, and so much influence that you don’t even know where it comes from. When you finally realize where it comes from, it’s just like an a-ha moment.