Must-Watch Music Videos: Lamar + Nik Depict The Lushlife

[Editor’s Note: Two major trends have emerged in the recent history of new media: 1) Music videos are the new music and 2) YouTube is the new MTV. With that in mind and to keep you up to speed with the greatest and latest in this online video category, Tubefilter has partnered with INDMUSIC, YouTube’s largest independent music network, to bring you at least one must-watch music video every week. Turn up your volume and we hope you enjoy the analysis, sites, and sounds. For more Must-Watch Music Video installments, click here.]

Oklahoma City-based directors Lamar + Nik are doing amazing things in the music video world. In part because the duo just gets it. They understand that if you have creativity and vision, you don’t need money to make something innovative with perspective. Philly based-rapper Lushlife is of the same creative ilk, so when the directing team hatched an idea to shoot his Magnolia track for an astonishing $80, without the use of CGI, he was more than game.

The self proclaimed bedroom composer has quickly amassed an impressive catalogue of tunes, setting him up as a new voice in hip hop that shouldn’t be ignored. He follows his much-touted 2011 mixtape, No More Golden Days, with Plateau Visions, where he racks up collabs with Heems, Cities Aviv, and Styles P, and stars in this fantastic music video.

The video – shot in over 65 different locations in and around Oklahoma City – proves talent has a way of finding its counterpoint. Lushlife and Lamar + Nik are the perfect pairing for this track. Together they find a way to visually highlight the intricate lyrics and vocal turns, providing Lushlife a fantastic lens from which to shine through as not only a composer, but as an MC. This is a track you can’t ignore paired with a video that you can’t forget.

Lushlife has rocket sets at festivals so be sure to catch him in NYC at Brooklyn’s Northside Festival this summer and in Philly at the okayplayer picnic with a few more names you’re sure to recognize.  And if you like what you see, check here for some more righteous Lamar + Nik visuals.

Arshan Sadri is the Channel Manager at Brooklyn based, INDMUSIC, YouTube’s largest music Network. He got his start booking comedy and music at the University of Maryland. On weekends he refuses to travel above 14th street, likes to run, and plays in two bands that are just ok.

INDMUSIC is YouTube’s Largest Music Network, allowing independent music content creators to monetize their YouTube views without sacrificing creative control or rights to their content.