DRG Films

We just recently screened the documentary “A Love Supreme: U-N-I & Ro Blvd.” in the MGM tower in Century City.

One thing about these music videos is that there isn’t a common timetable as far as production is concerned.  Creativity doesn’t have a set schedule.  When you add a budget into the equation, that alters plans too.

A treatment was written for this song back in June of 2009.  Production didn’t take place until October.  The editing process wasn’t complete until January of 2010.  So this video, from inception to completion, took 7 months.

After 15 months, 1 crashed hard drive, 1 college party in San Diego, 25 hours of captured footage, 8 attended performances, an 8 installment video series, 1 blown out computer screen, 1 trip to Texas, 16 interviews and 3 months of editing, this documentary will finally be released to the public.

A Love Supreme 2.0 is scheduled to drop on March 9, 2010.  A Love Supreme: U-N-I & Ro Blvd. - The Documentary will be attached to every copy of the album.

I first heard about the earthquake in Haiti on Tuesday when it occurred.  As the information was pouring in, the details became worse in intensity.  7.0 magnitude.  Every major structure in Port-Au-Prince has been destroyed.  No medical staff or supplies to help the survivors.  Between 100,000 and 200,000 are either dead or missing.

Two aspects of this event are important.  One, is that as powerful and intelligent the human race is, it’s nothing compared to the magnitude of nature.

The other aspect is that no matter how insulated we are in our societal bubble, it’s important to understand that the world is so much bigger than what’s in front of you.  Earth is 316 million square miles (510 million kilometers) that includes over 6 and a half billion people.  It’s easy to get caught up in your personal issues and other meaningless entertainment distractions, but we should keep a perspective that the world is so much bigger than what we see.

Having said that, it’s remarkable that this event took place.  Within a few days, The LAX Paperboys and Devi Dev were able to get most of the major Hip Hop acts on a stage big enough to hold them and a venue big enough to fit all of the people that came out to donate their money, clothing, and food to the earthquake relief fund for the Yele Foundation.

Dev had a quote that she wanted to include in the interview, but it had to be omitted for time reasons.  The quote was from Edward Everett Hale and it goes “I am only one, but I am one.  I can’t do everything, but I can do something.  And I will not allow what I cannot do to interfere with what I can do.”  There’s a million reasons and excuses for you not to do something.  But please understand that something that really small in your life is something that is giant in someone else’s.

Many kudos and congratulations are in order for The LAX Paperboys and Devi Dev for making such an event happen and getting so many donations in such a short amount of time.  You can keep up with them (and they have a lot going on) at www.laxpaperboys.com and www.devidev.com.  Dev hit me up on Friday and told me about the Sunday show and I was highly skeptical that they would be able to pull it off.  I was done to be a part of the show and I thank both her and Gavin from the LAX Paperboys for allowing me to interview them and make this project.

For more information about donating to the Earthquake Relief Fund through the Yele Foundation, log onto www.yele.org.  And even if you don’t donate through Yele, there are numerous foundations that are involved with helping to rebuild Haiti.  They need all of the assistance that they can get.

This video includes a medley of the live performances from the Just Be Cool Benefit Concert.  It was a wonderful night for those that appreciate good music, especially Hip Hop.

Overdoz began the show with a high energy set.  These guys seemed to be really excited to be a part of such a historic show and you can feel their enthusiasm in the performance.  They brought out C-San (who was in the Floss Angeles video we made in the summer of ‘09).  You can check them out www.weodoz.com.

Then Tiron came out.  He was proud to be a part of the show as well as he went through his set.  In between songs, he was telling the audience that how big of a disaster the country is suffering through and anything that we can provide to the foundation that we should give it to them.  You can tell by his body language that the earthquake has really affected him and that he wanted to so much more.  Go download his Ketchup mixtape at www.myspace.com/imtiron.

Cherry Pop was the following act.  These girls do music that includes pretty much everything.  I don’t think the audience was ready for these girls because it took awhile for them to warm up to them, but they were singing a long with the chorus during their last song.

Strong Arm Steady came out and took command of the stage.  It was my first time seeing them live and I know understand how they have such a loyal fan base after watching their set.  www.myspace.com/theGangSAS is where you can find out more about them.

Y-O and Thurz, aka U-N-I, followed.  It’s always good when I get to see these guys perform as a member of the audience instead of as a job filming them.  For the Land Of The Kings remix, Thurz did the hook with a specially designed microphone that makes his voice sound like a monster.  It sounded so dope that he used it for the rest of their set.  Their album drops in March and if you don’t know by now, the documentary that accompanies the project is an official DRG Films production.  www.YOThurz.com is the site.

Fear & Fancy came out with painted faces that made them look like warriors and were dancing all over the stage.  The audience was once again confused initially, but midway through their first song, they were into the group.  They came all the way from Oakland to perform for the show so I thought that was really fresh.  Check them out at www.myspace.com/fearandfancy.

Diz Gibran came out shortly afterwards to his signature opus “Truly Yours”.  I’ve been listening to his album for the past 2 months really strong, so I was really excited to see him.  I was not disappointed in the least.  His ‘conversational flow’ really connected with the crowd.  They held their lighters and cell phones in sky as he went through his set.  www.diznmoon.com is where you can download his latest project “Soon You’ll Understand”.

Dom Kennedy followed up Diz and didn’t waste anytime at all onstage.  The crowd was reciting all of lines from his first song “Hard Work” and he had control over them for the rest of his performance.  Dom had an incredible amount of stage presence.  He’s got a new project coming out real soon, but you can download his available projects at www.dopeitsdom.com.

The mighty Pac Div came out like a basketball team.  Their latest project is called Church League Champions and it’s a fitting name because they move around the stage as if their running a basketball offense.  These guys put a lot into their performance and it shows.  www.itspacdiv.com is where you can find out more about the group.

The latest LA sensation Nipsey Hussle closed out the show.  Nipsey reminds everyone of Snoop Dogg, but the truth is that he’s a much harder, rougher version of Snoop in his early days.  I’ve heard nothing but good things about Nipsey as a person and I was listening to his mixtape a lot last fall when we moved out here near downtown LA.  Once he got into “Hussle In The House”, everybody in the crowd and everyone backstage was reciting every single word from the song.

Overall, the event was historical.  There will never be another show like that in LA for that price.  I feel really bad that I wasn’t able to include all of the show’s performers in the video due to technical issues, but there are many other video online media sites that have footage from the show (check out www.lastereo.tv and www.getnoticedmedia.com) that I didn’t include in this video.  I hope that people remember that these artists came together from all corners of California to donate their time to raise money to rebuild Haiti.

For more information about how to contribute to the Earthquake Relief Fund through the Yele Foundation, please log onto www.yele.org.  And even if you don’t donate through Yele, there are numerous foundations that are involved with helping to rebuild Haiti.  They need all of the assistance that they can get.

It’s the first day of the new decade.  2009 brought accomplishments and failures.  Breakthroughs and setbacks.  Achievements and frustration.  Some new friends were made, some new associates were made, and then there’s just some people that you really don’t care for.

One of the major projects DRG Films was working on during the year was the documentary about the trio of guys up at the top.  There were so many advancements and setbacks that came during the production of this movie.  The initial hour long interview that took place at our old headquarters in the great city of Pasadena.  The trip to Texas for the South By Southwest Festival.  Listening to some of Dibiase’s music at his house near USC (he made an Amazing beat to the Super Mario Bros. theme song).  The external hard drive crashing in post-production.  My computer screen blowing out during the editing process.  Waiting for the guys to approve the final edit while they were on their nationwide tour with Warren G and Kidz In The Hall.

But the most difficult thing about making this happen was the fact that we made this with a very low budget.  It felt like Tom Hanks trying to keep the logs from his self-made raft from floating away in that movie Castaway.  There were many days of desperation, frustration, and aggravation.  Many days.

But the project is done.  Fittingly, the final edit was completed on the early morning of December 31.  Having that movie done on the last day of the year is the perfect way to close a chapter and begin a new one.  Many opportunities were made and both us and U-N-I & Ro benefited greatly from our work together.

I’ll close this out by saying that this wasn’t the initial plan when we began working together.  I’ve known Ro for years and when he hit me up to tell me about the A Love Supreme project, I was happy for him, but I didn’t know U-N-I.  Then I went to one of the studio sessions were Ro and Glenn (The Engineer) were working on the song “My Life”.  Once I heard the song, I knew that there was an interesting story behind the whole project.  I planned out the structure of the story that very night and certain pieces began to fall into place once we began production.

The final cut is very close to the initial vision.  I had planned on doing much more special effect sequences and I wanted to go more in depth on certain subjects, but I’m content with the final edit.  Hopefully everyone is receptive to it once they see it and walk away with an understanding what these guys have accomplished with nothing but drive, determination and ingenuity.

While we were shooting the Floss Angeles music video, we came across the young producer who goes by the name of Jansport J.  His name was fitting because he actually had a Jansport backpack on at the time.

We met up with him and he told us about this project he was working on with a rapper names Hawdwerk  (which I still have trouble saying his name…that first “w” throws me off all of the time).  We started working on an EPK for the project at the end of the summer and they just released it in November.  The reaction they have received has been very positive.

It’s always good to see people from the Covina/West Covina area succeeding (and there are a lot of us out there making major moves).

As I’m working on this holiest of American holidays on this Soundclash music video, I figured I would post the EPK that we did for this group called “Those Chosen”.

The history with this group traces back to MySpace.  Although MySpace has done wonders as far as simplifying creating websites and networking with people, it has been surpassed by Facebook and Twitter this year as far as popularity and accessibilty.  Anyways, they hit me up on MySpace saying that they wanted to get some work done and for me to hit them up.  I get so many messages, emails, spam, and junk mail from music groups that I forgot to hit them back.

A few months pass and we run across them at some concert, but I can’t remember which one.  They were working on their new project “Steamulus: The Watts Riot Effect”.  We knocked out an EPK for them and did some other video stuff for them.  They had done so much stuff over the past year that the EPK is a little longer than what we normally do (which is actually a good thing).

Bottom line, when you’re trying to reach people, don’t trust MySpace anymore.  Email is the best way nowadays (and that isn’t even for sure anymore).

Back in the spring of ‘09, we were filming the music video for Floss Angeles and I first came in contact with Dale Danja.  I had him walk through about 20 feet of sewage in the LA river near downtown to get to a particular location for his performance shot (I appreciate his diligence on it).

Anyways, he gave us a physical copy of his Cheap By Nature album and we listened to it as we were traveling between locations.  Once I heard the first track on the album, I knew I wanted to make a music video for it.  We finished making the video and time went on.

A few months later, I run into Dale at a U-N-I show over in Echo Park.  We were in the process of moving our headquarters from Pasadena to Downtown LA and the refrigerator that was in the new house didn’t work for some reason.  It just so happens that Dale’s business partner had a frig that he was looking to get rid off and said that we could take it of his hands as long as we go pick it up.  We cheer for joy at this happy coincidence because now we don’t have to eat out every single day.

This happy coincidence triggered the initial ideas I had for the music video idea I had for that song I heard months ago on that video shoot.  I hit up Dale a few weeks after seeing him at the U-N-I show and told him my idea.  He was down for the concept, plus it was perfect timing for him because he was looking for some sort of visual project to release the Cheap By Nature online with (at the time, he only had physical copies printed up).  We made the video and he released just a few weeks ago and the feedback has been nothing but positive.

Although there hasn’t been anything posted on the drgfilms.com website in awhile, we are still working on many projects that will be released to the public very soon.

I wanted to take the time to dig into the DRG Films video archives and present a video that was made about 4 years ago this month.  I got a call from B1, who was working at WILD 96.1 out in the Inland Empire outside of Los Angeles (the station no longer exists), and he told me that he had this singer coming thru to the station for an interview on a Sunday afternoon.  It was a rare occurrence to have an artist come thru for an interview on a Sunday, but she was performing at some sort of makeshift fashion show at the Tyler Mall in Riverside and they arranged an interview.

Vanya happened to be at the station at the time and she decided to stay and sit in on the interview.  The singer came thru with a crew of about 4 people.  She was only 17 at the time, but she had a presence and confidence about her that really did stand out.  She was gracious and appreciative throughout the interview, but you can tell that she was going to be something special even then.  After she left the studio, I had this feeling within me of support for this girl.  I had a lot of hope for this girl to be successful at this music stuff, and that was only after spending about an hour or so with her.

That 17 year old girl was Rihanna.

BET.com has made a list of the top 23 mixtapes of 2009.  DRG Films has done work for 3 of those projects: U-N-I’s “Before There Was Love”, El Prez & Dale Danja’s “Perfect Strangers EP”, and the production team Los Angeles Unified Sound District’s “Curly Tops And Nautica Jackets”.

The music video release for El Prez & Dale Danja’s “Floss Angeles” happened yesterday and it has received a lot of positive response online.  The whole production process is a testament to the collaboration that it takes to make these things happen.

The idea came from a conversation between myself and J.J. as we were driving back from Austin and the South By Southwest festival in Texas.  We were talking about artists in L.A. that had projects coming out soon that we should do a video for.  A list of names came up and of course El Prez named popped up.  I told him about Floss Angeles, my favorite track off of the Perfect Strangers EP that was just released a few months earlier.  It was a song that featured 5 other artists and it reminded me of those vintage, 1990’s Hip-Hop posse cuts and I loved that.  J.J. agreed with the notion and we hit up Prez as soon as we reached California.  A meeting was held with him, E-Dubb, Eazee and Vanessa the PR girl.  Everyone loved the idea and we set the production wheels in motion.

We made the video with a super low budget because we were working with an independent artist.  So we designed the video to be shot guerrilla style at certain locales around the LA area.  We got everyone involved with the project together on a weekend and we shot the video over those 2 days.  I was dealing with 6 artists and 6 different locations, so it was a little crazy getting all of the shots and keeping everyone focused.

The editing process was another story.  I wasn’t able to get all of the shots that I wanted, so I couldn’t make the video that I had initially planned on making.  I made a first edit in which I was still trying to make my initial idea work, but the edit just wasn’t there.  After abandoning my initial idea and strictly working with the shots that I got, another 2 edits happened before I was content with the project.  But Prez didn’t agree with some of the choices I made.  A lot of back-and-forth would take place between everybody and I had to balance their ideas and my editing to make it work.  3 more edits would take place before everyone was happy with the project.

A lot of people don’t realize that these videos are collaborations.  Compromises are necessary and you have to admit when you’re own ideas aren’t going to work.  But as long as you’re working with intelligent people, the project will find a way to get done.

DRG Films just recently completed production on the “Floss Angeles” music video off of the “Perfect Strangers EP” from Hip Hop artists El Prez & Dale Danja.  Here is some footage of the water balloon/water gun fight that took place during shooting.  

A recap of some of the interesting stories that took place during the 2-day shoot will be up when post-production is complete.  

A big thank you to E-Dubb over at www.whateyethought.com for posting this video.  

We just completed an Electronic Press Kit for Inglewood-Based artist El Prez.  He is a part of the new Hip Hop sound coming out of Los Angeles this year.  His latest project is called Perfect Strangers, which is a collaboration effort with Dale Danja.  Check for upcoming solo project “Bottles On The White House Lawn” scheduled to drop in late 2009.  

www.myspace.com/elprezidente