Eddie man it was a pleasure to know you my brother. I’ll never forget skating Downtown Oakland together. Or what a great family you have with Deb and your son. A real honest to goodness down brother, funny, humble and supportive and unique. You will not be forgotten.
Did color tweaking and some title animations with Buildestroy collaborator Miguel (BOUNCE) Perez for our boy Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi. The group is VIP / Vizion in Progress from Ghana Africa and the sound is real dope. It’s a mix of African Highlife and Hip Hop. To me it’s real reminiscent of Dancehall but definitely has it’s own variations. Very melodic and the catchiest hooks, these kids are real tight. The video was shot in 3 parts between LA, NYC, and Ghana. We created 3 different looks for each section with the color palettes and title styles that fit each region. Eli is currently finishing the Documentary about this movement called “Home Grown - Hip Life in Ghana” check for it soon.
I recently designed the website for the doc film “The Row” that documents the lives of a handful of Skid Row residents and their lives, trials and tribulations. Directed by Buildestroy collaborator Camila Martins and will feature music by BD audio collaborator Asa Taccone. The website I designed is in the works (therowdocumentary.com) and the amazing portraits below are shot by Chuc Ngyen.
DJ Vlad along with my good friend Peter Spirer from Rugged Entertainment brings you the story of the Bay tracing the roots of Hyphy and Thizz to how Mac Dre came up to become one of the Bay’s biggest icons. Even people that grew up in the Bay can learn something from this joint like all that stupid doo doo dumb talk or how Hammer thought he was Turf Dancing too. I did some of the animation for it and it’s gonna be released through Image Entertainment so you can peep it on Netflix or in the stores. A must for anyone lovin’ the Bay.
Old Buildestroy partner in crime Steve Marcus has really outdone himself from our early days of animating together. One of the first After Effects jobs I ever did was with Smarcus. He got us the gig to make a cartoon for The Red Hot Chili Peppers world tour stage show, for the song Californication. Later that year they played it on MTV Music Awards when the Chili Peppers performed that song. Well Mr. Smarcus had put some really raunchy words in Japanese during one part, and MTV Asia played it all the way through to the horror of thousands of proper japanese families and of course MTV. But they never asked our permission to show it so take that.
Years later we haven’t grown up much and Steve’s latest offering is an amazing world that he created called 3 Thug Mice. It follows the exploits of NYC’s nastiest critters starring some of the illest characters in the known world. From Kool G Rap and RA the Rugged Man to Min, Fuzz, and Ket. Each week brings a new episode of hilarious shit, you gotta watch to understand how Steve’s humor goes down. So check it here on the weekly: 3thugmice.com. There’s been talk of turning it all into a feature film too, so help support.
Oh yeah my favorite part of the site is this crazy scene with the whole cast. Roll over each one and click to hear a soundbite from the actor. It’s tight and he’s got some real underground people on this joint. There’s also a Flash game where you have to blast on piglet cops and turn them into ham. Word.
