Rudimental, Naughty Boy & More: "Faceless" UK Super Producers
Not so long ago, the world was bemoaning the slow decline of the music video and all it had come to represent throughout our MTV-obsessed youths. However, a new wave of almost faceless British producers is changing that. While these artists receive worldwide acclaim for their music, they manage as individuals to remain practically invisible behind the vocalists they feature, and to an even greater extent, their music videos.
Recently I got to hang out with both Rudimental and Naughty Boy and was fascinated by the way that, regardless of their music being all over every radio station in the UK and increasingly over here right now (Naughty Boy's "La La La" featuring Sam Smith is almost inescapable), the songmakers themselves can still walk down the street with barely anybody paying them any mind.
This canon of brilliant producers seem to be taking advantage of that, and I don't just mean by going to the local supermarket in the pajamas in broad daylight. There are visual implications and freedoms that come with this facelessness, and Naughty Boy recently chose to make his entire debut album, Hotel Cabana, an "audio-visual experience," shooting several cinematic videos set around a fictional hotel, including this one for "La La La" shot in Bolivia, which to date has racked up an impressive 244 million views (whaaat?!)
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