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Nick McDonald and Nate James had no idea Kadeem Hemmings was gonna do it to em.
The trio are lifelong friends who grew up together in Canada. So, when COVID hit, it was only natural for them to try entertaining each other.
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“Basically we’re just this three childhood friends that grew up, just regular dudes that hang out, play video games, just chill. We’d occasionally dance sometimes,” Hemmings says. “I guess one day we decided to record us dancing just out of boredom, just because of COVID.”
They weren’t filming themselves to post online. It was just a little thing that, for a while, lived on Hemmings’ phone. There were no grand plans for it.
There still weren’t any grand plans when Hemmings–again, out of boredom–decided to try editing it and uploading it to TikTok one night.
The next morning, McDonald and James woke up to a flood of messages from him. The video hadn’t just done well–it had brought in more than one million views in less than 12 hours. McDonald and James were floored. They never thought Hemmings would do anything with the video. Now they were watching the view count tick up in real time. People were following the account. Comments were asking for more.
So, they figured, they should probably do it again.
That was three years ago. Now, the Basement Gang has 7 million followers on TikTok, 530,000 on YouTube, and more than 800,000 on Instagram. That one dance has turned into an entirely new career for McDonald, James, and Hemmings, and they can’t wait to see where it takes them next.
Check out our chat with them below.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tubefilter: I’m familiar with you and with your videos, but pretend somebody’s reading this and they’ve never seen your stuff. Give me a little bit of background about the three of you, where you grew up, and how you ended up together. Whoever wants to start!
Kadeem Hemmings: Basically we’re just this three childhood friends that grew up, just regular dudes that hang out, play video games, just chill. We’d occasionally dance sometimes. I guess one day we decided to record us dancing just out of boredom, just because of COVID. We edited the video and posted on TikTok thinking like, We’ll just throw it on here. It’s nothing crazy, just put it up, see what happens. Then it ended up doing really well. We just kept trying again, and from there we’ve been making videos ever since.
Tubefilter: When was that?
Kadeem Hemmings: I think it was in May…
Nate James: May 2020.
Tubefilter: May 2020.
Kadeem Hemmings: Yes, May 2020.
Tubefilter: Was there anything in particular that you were like, we’re going to put this one online? Or was it really just, we just filmed and we’re gonna give it a shot?
Nick McDonald: No, we didn’t even know. We didn’t discuss that we’re going to make a dance video and post it anywhere. It was a old video that was on Kadeem’s phone of us dancing. When COVID happened, he got bored and chopped it up and posted it. When we woke up in the morning, our phones are blowing up and we’re looking, and I see a text from these guys saying, “Look at your phone, look at your phone!” and we see a million views.
We all called each other immediately. We’re all laughing. We can’t believe what’s going on. We’re like, Hey, do you want to try it again? We met up later on in the week to try this again. The same outcome. We got another million views. We’re like, Let’s just keep doing it. We’re having fun and the people are watching it and liking us, so just keep going.
Tubefilter: Is this your full-time thing for all three of you now?
Nate James: It is now.
Tubefilter: Did you have career aspirations before this? Because I imagine they’ve changed a lot.
Nate James: For the longest time, for two years of the three, I was doing my master’s in physio. I just finished that in November. Kadeem was doing his degree in psychology and Nick was doing some stuff in electrical techniques. We all had other aspirations at the time and jobs at the time, and then this took a life of its own. We’ve decided to give our full attention to it. It’s been really great so far.
Tubefilter: Was there a specific point that you guys hit where you were like, We’re going to commit and do this full-time? Was there a certain follower count?
Kadeem Hemmings: I feel like we all had our own moment. I feel like for me is when I was at work and someone recognized me, and I’m like, Oh, maybe I should try this out full-time, because people started to recognize me and they really enjoy the videos. I should probably pursue it and see where it goes.
Nate James: I think for me it was when we got an agent. I was like, An agent for a person like me? It was really crazy. When something like that happens, I think you start to realize that there may be more to it than you’ve initially assumed, and that you should probably put your full attention to it to see how far you can take it.
Tubefilter: What about you, Nick?
Nick McDonald: For me is when we started getting paid more than going to work.
Tubefilter: [laughs] That’s a good sign.
Nick McDonald: Yeah, where I could financially support the people around me. I was like, I’m having more fun doing this, and it’s taking a lot less than my time. I don’t remember who the first person was to quit, but he called us and he was like, “Yo, I quit my job.” That caused a chain reaction of, oh, okay. I’m like, I think I’m going to do it next then.
Tubefilter: That’s amazing. When you shifted to full-time on this, what did that look like for you guys? What does your current production schedule look like? Are you aiming to do a certain number of videos per week?
Kadeem Hemmings: I think more of the same because we had a recipe that worked before we made any changes. We felt like if we did too much, it wouldn’t be authentic, it wouldn’t come off as natural. We just kept doing the same thing we’ve been doing since.
Tubefilter: What was that recipe?
Kadeem Hemmings: We would just meet up on one or two days out of the week, usually a Friday, because that’s the end of the week, and we just have our days off there. We meet up on a Friday, maybe a Saturday, and we just just hang out, just chill. It was no pressure to make sure we made videos. Then, I guess we just do that. We just figure out ideas and brainstorm through there, and pick what songs we want to dance to. I thought it was two or three videos maybe a week, and then we just started to trickle off, try to do one or two, try doing some more YouTube stuff, and this diversified ourselves.
Tubefilter: That’s perfect, because I did want to bring up YouTube. TikTok is your main platform, but I know you guys also have a large presence on YouTube and on Instagram as well. Do you have a cross-platform strategy? Are you reposting TikTok content to other platforms? Are you making different content for every platform?
Nate James: I think that since we started taking this full-time, we’ve definitely had a lot more time to diversify our strategy, because at first, we were just like, We’ll make videos and then we’ll just post on each platform and see how they do. Now, we have time to make stuff for specific platforms. Now that we’ve been in this for almost three years, we can tell what does better and what short form versus long form, what does better where.
In the past few months, we’ve been able to really blow up our YouTube a bit and our Instagram just by knowing what does better there, and also having a lot more time to film and make specific content for those platforms. Also, we have a recipe for our TikTok too, which we’ve been still going hard at.
Tubefilter: Do you guys notice a difference in your audiences across platforms? Are you reaching different demographics on different platforms, or do you feel like you have a pretty unified audience across everywhere you are?
Kadeem Hemmings: Across different platforms, they’re more or less the same. I feel like YouTube might be a little bit different with the split. I guess on TikTok and Instagram, there’s more a female following.
Tubefilter: Oh really?
Kadeem Hemmings: Yes. Then on YouTube, it’s split in the middle. It’s half-half.
Tubefilter: That’s really interesting. I think you’re the first dude creators I’ve spoken to who are like, yes, I have a majority female audience. That’s really interesting.
Kadeem Hemmings: It is.
Nate James: Our thing, I think it’s a very female-dominant split. It’s 70%, 80%, to be honest. You got the looks, man. [laughs]
Tubefilter: That is true. It’s true! That makes sense. That’s actually really interesting though. Does that factor into how you plan content at all, or is it just a cool thing that happens?
Nate James: It just happens.
Nick McDonald: It’s just a cool thing that happen.
Tubefilter: I really think in six years of doing this, I think you’re the first guys I’ve spoken to who’ve said that.
Kadeem Hemmings: Wow, really? Pretty cool.
Tubefilter: What’s been your favorite part of being on the internet for all three of you? What’s been your favorite part of this whole experience?
Nick McDonald: For me, we’ve been traveling more and it’s been good to see we can go to a different country and someone would be like, “Hey, I know you.” That’s just the craziest feeling for me. For example, I just came back from Jamaica, and I was just walking down and someone was just like this the whole time. [gestures] I was like, Whoa, you actually know who I am. All the way in another country? That was just mind-blowing to me.
Kadeem Hemmings: I’d say for me, it would probably be the same thing, traveling and meeting a lot of big people. We met a few celebrities and stuff like that, and other big creators. It’s definitely weird since we haven’t really been doing this too long. It’s crazy seeing creators that I’ve been watching before we did this, saying, “I like you guys. I’m a fan of you guys. I love you guys’ work.” It’s just mind-blowing to me just to hear that.
Nate James: I think my favorite part is, one, that I get to work with my two closest friends, and I don’t feel like a lot of people get that opportunity. I feel like a lot of times, your coworkers are picked for you. The fact that I have people that I work with that are very close to me, it makes my life a lot easier. I think the other thing that I’ve really enjoyed was just the experiences that we’ve gotten to do, and things that we’ve gotten to do that I would have never imagined.
We got to meet The Rock, we got to meet some celebrities. We’ve been on a cruise, we’ve been traveling. It’s just so many things that I never, myself five years ago, if I asked myself where I’d be today, I would never have been able to say that I’d be here. It’s cool to see where something like this could take you in such a short amount of time.
Tubefilter: How did you end up meeting The Rock? That’s pretty red letter.
Nate James: It was Black Adam. Is that what the movie’s called, Black Adam?
Tubefilter: Yes.
Nate James: His movie premiere. That sounds bad, but I didn’t know what the movie was called.
Tubefilter: [laughs] The Rock was there, that’s the important part.
Nate James: Exactly. They said the Rock was there. I said, All right, let me give him the most firm handshake I can to try to assert dominance.
Tubefilter: There you go.
Nate James: It didn’t work, but that’s okay. [laughs]
Kadeem Hemmings: He said you look big though. He complimented the arms.
Nate James: He did compliment my arms. I’ll never forget that.
Tubefilter: Is he as tall as he looks in real life?
Nate James: He’s about our height. Same height as Nick and I, but not Kadeem there. He is as wide as he looks.
@basementgangHappy september!!! 🕺🏾♬ September – Earth, Wind & Fire
Tubefilter: There we go. [laughs] Aside from going to the Black Adam premier, any cool campaigns or sponsorships, any cool opportunities, that kind of stuff? Any companies you’ve worked with?
Nick McDonald: Quite a few. Footlocker, right?
Kadeem Hemmings: Yes, that was probably our first really big cool one where it was like, they put our pictures up in a whole bunch of malls across the city and people were like, Wait, I know these guys, I went to high school with them. Or, I know these guys. I played football, I played basketball with them. That was definitely cool. Like Nate said, we just came back. We were on a cruise, we did a campaign with a cruise line. That was really cool. What else is there? Oh, we went to Florida. I met Scottie Barnes.
Nick McDonald: Oh yes, we worked with the NBA. They had us fly out to Florida to see Scottie Barnes to have him in the video. That was pretty dope.
Tubefilter: That’s wild. Very cool. I did want to ask, you said you’re expanding a bit on YouTube, and I noticed that you’re doing a lot of long-form content on YouTube. Obviously you went viral with shorts, so what’s it been like to transition into long-form?
Nate James: I think it’s been fun because you get to express yourself in ways that you don’t naturally get to in short-form content. I feel like it’s good to have a lot of people see our personalities. It’s funny when sometimes I go through the long-form content, they’re like, “I didn’t know you guys spoke like that, or you had accents.” Obviously to us, we don’t have an accent because this is how I’ve talked my whole life. It’s crazy to see how people also enjoy hearing us speak and letting our personalities fully come through in our long-form content. I have a lot of fun because we do funny stuff like yoga or funny games and stuff. I think it’s been a good opportunity to let our personality shine through.
Tubefilter: What’s your team like behind the scenes? Do you guys have editors?
Kadeem Hemmings: This is all we got.
Nick McDonald: The three of us.
Tubefilter: You edit all your own stuff too?
Kadeem Hemmings: Yes. Probably 98% of the stuff. Once in a while, we might get someone to cut up our YouTube videos or I might ask my brother to film for us. Other than that, it’s all us.
Tubefilter: Is there one among you who does the most editing, or how do you split tasks?
Kadeem Hemmings: I probably do a lot of the editing. Also, Nick and Nate do edit a lot too. It just like I always enjoyed editing, so that’s why I just grabbed it and just started doing it right away, but we all play our part too.
Nate James: If the video makes your eyes go like this, it’s Kadeem. [laughs] If it’s just a regular video like, Oh, I could probably do that, then it’s probably me.
Tubefilter: Kadeem, did you teach yourself to edit?
Kadeem Hemmings: I guess self-taught in YouTube tutorials and stuff like that.
Nick McDonald: That’s why when you posted the first video and I was looking at it, and I was like, Bro, I didn’t know Kadeem could do this.
Kadeem Hemmings: I didn’t know I could do it either, to be honest.
Tubefilter: That’s good. Of all the skills to discover that you’ve got, that’s a good one. I can’t believe you guys aren’t working with anybody. Are you thinking about it?
Kadeem Hemmings: Yes, we’re thinking about it a little bit.
Tubefilter: Kadeem, though, you seem to be really passionate about doing your editing. For good reason.
Kadeem Hemmings: Yes, I really like doing it a lot. For me to get someone else to do it for me, it’s a bit tough because I don’t know how it’s going to go or if I’m going to like the way it looks. We’ve definitely thought about it, because it would be a lot easier just to have someone else do it for us. Therefore we can film more stuff and get more content that way.
Tubefilter: What was your favorite video to film together? You can have different answers.
Kadeem Hemmings: I don’t know. There’s so many, because a lot of our videos is just us busting jokes the entire time. To pick one, it’s probably impossible. Every video we’ve made, we’ve probably laughed and joked around, so it’s hard to pick for me.
Nate James: I can pick. [pointedly] I’m decisive.
Tubefilter: [laughs] Wow. No shame.
Nate James: I’m kidding. I think my favorite one was when we did the period simulator.
Tubefilter: Oh. How was that for you guys?
Nate James: Going back to watch that, I laughed so hard because everyone has their own way of dealing with pain. I think what makes me laugh the most is that, of course, I’m screaming, Nick’s like, “I can’t do this anymore.” Kadeem is just profusely sweating. He’s not really saying much, he just sweats. I think that’s fundamentally Kadeem, because in everything we do, Kadeem is just sweating. We do yoga, he’s sweating. We dance, he’s sweating. Period simulator, he’s sweating. He just sweats. It’s just like, that video is so the basics of who we are to the core that I just like going back to it and watching it.
Tubefilter: That one has to be in the story then. It’s going to be our lead video.
Nate James: It’s funny.
Tubefilter: Oh man, that’s quite an experience. I would imagine that was very fun to endure.
Nate James: It was eye-opening, to say the least.
Tubefilter: Probably great for your female audience. I’m sure that was great for them.
Kadeem Hemmings: It was.
Nate James: Yes.
Nick McDonald: I would say I would have more fun doing Spanish music, but I find it funny looking at the old videos of when we were just starting, the raw footage. That was probably because I laughed every single time we would just watch. Because how we looked then versus now, we look so awkward and we’re just barely breaking out of that shell of dancing in front of a camera. I just looked back and laugh on just how we carry ourselves and how when we look, now we’re just so comfortable in front of the camera.
Tubefilter: That’s a big difference in, what, a little less than three years?
Nick McDonald: Yes.
@basementgangWho knew a song about a beeper could be this good 💃♬ El beeper – Basement Gang
Tubefilter: It’s not easy. I wanted to ask a little bit about your video planning process. Who comes up with ideas the most and where do you go? Once you have an idea, how does it go from there? Do you script at all?
Nate James: I think everything we do is more unplanned. For our long-form stuff, we have a shared document where we’ll just put ideas, and then when we’re about to meet up, we’ll just say, which video do you think we want to do this week? I think last week we did a series of would-you-rather questions. We just go with the flow because that’s our natural thing. We don’t script anything, even with our dances. There’s no scripting of anything. We have an idea, like we’re going to dance to this song or we’re going to do this YouTube video, but there’s no scripting. Once the camera’s on, we just let our personality shine through and hope for the best.
Nick McDonald: For our dance videos, sometimes we don’t even have a song. We just show up, chill, just sit down and if someone’s just like, Hey, what song are we doing today? We’ll just sit there like, I don’t know. Let me just go through the phone real quick. Then we’ll just play a song out loud. You like this? Okay, sure. Let’s go. That’s really how it goes.
Tubefilter: Any cool plans or goals or projects you’re working on right now?
Nick McDonald: I don’t know if we can–can we even talk about it?
Tubefilter: You’re going to no-spoilers me?
Nick McDonald: We can’t talk about it?
Kadeem Hemmings: I guess we have VidCon coming up. We have awards show coming up, Black Academy Awards. In terms of personal stuff, not really.
Tubefilter: Not really? Okay. You have projects, but you can’t tell me about them.
Nate James: I guess that’s too early to– I get nervous about saying things before they happen.
Tubefilter: No, I’m just teasing, I get it. Any sort of goals that you guys would hope for as a group or individually?
Nate James: 100%. I think we want to be on TV. I think we just have personalities that are really strong as a team, and I think that people really connect with our personalities and our friendship. I think getting on a big screen of some sort would be really cool.
Tubefilter: What about you two? Anything to add?
Nick McDonald: Just keep growing the follower base. That’s pretty much it.
Nate James: Oh, I have one. I have a big one. Next year I want to be nominated for a Streamy. In the dance category.
Tubefilter: You have to make sure that you submit yourselves!
Nate James: Yes, we will.
Tubefilter: Anything else to add?
Kadeem Hemmings: Just diversify ourselves. I guess being bigger than just dance creators, just doing more things than just dancing. Like Nate James said, TV, growing our following in different ways, especially in our YouTube. That’s pretty much our goals.
