This was the third music video I ever directed. It came out in the sping of 1989. I was 23 and Special Ed was only 17!
Ed was truly a brilliant lyricist and this low budget action-movie-style video is just flat-out ridiculous, complete with a hovercraft chase scene and a helicopter. I have no idea how I managed to do this all for $13,0001
I had aspired to become an action movie director, so this was a test for me to learn some of these tricks but the Hollywood was very misogynistic back then – the opposite of what it is today, where the prerequisite for being hired is to either be a woman or a Person of Color. I was very salty about that whole situation.
I never became a Hollywood action, like my rold model, Kathryn Bigelow. In hindsight, this was probably a good thing, as I might have been molded into a monster.
Anyway, this video totally cracks me up! Those were the days!
13k? Did that include your fee? Were all those girls volunteers? Lol. Pretty cool for the time, must’ve been fun. Special Ed is one of the cats that still cycles through my synapse with rhymes like “I’m the magnificent wifficent, sational style, I could go on and on for like a mile-a-minute…” Not to mention it was right around the time CDs were being introduced, and there was that clarity I remember bunpin’ through the house speakers that sounded so fresh (I had to bust out that adjective for ya). Before that, I was wearing out my dubbed analog tapes that had a less crispy sound to em (not to mention a grip of hiss) and sad to say I was on that “Parent’s Just Don’t Understand” by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince – in light of all that unrighteous heathenism Will apparently conforms to. Plus being an MC myself and learning that he took very kindly to ghost writers like Common… I didn’t know, I was just a wee bit wittle one. Though nowadays that shouldn’t bother me, knowing that within the next several years AI is prolly gonna be writing all your favorite artists’ lyrics, and in the style and delivery they themselves would cast… What a time to be kickin… You were definitely in the industry at the right time though, people still HAD TO BE somewhat social, and much more involved with each other in real life. There was still some semblance of art in the hiphop game, minus the blatant baphomet worship. Happy to see you got out unscathed 🙂
What brought me here was that Cathy O’brien vid, so relevant in this time. Wikileaks still describes her as “an American conspiracy theorist”, lol. That’s why your site is IMPORTANT.
Thanks for the Info!
Stay Blest
Thank you – yes, it was an incredible moment in US History and it’s too bad, how so many people don’t get this.
I did not see any Satanism, whatsoever, except in one other Rush Management artist, Slayer. I never met those guys but I was friends with “Heavy Metal Scott”, who managed/road managed them and some of the other metal bands they had, produced by Rick Rubin – who BTW, is a very talented classical pianist! “Heavy Metal Scott” was, ironically, a very gentle guy.
But Russell Simmons’ brother, Joseph, “Run” from Run-DMC might have seen something that may have caused him to become an ordained – and still-practicing – Pentecostal minister.
For ‘Tougher Than Leather’, we shot scenes in the Hollis Queens homes of the parents of both the Simmons brothers and DMC. They were Middle Class. The Simmons brothers’ father was a NY State Public School Principal in Queens.
Yes, my Director’s Fee was included in that $13k. It was always 10% of the budget and yes, the extra castmembers were his friends and appeared for free. My directorial debut was Special Ed’s “I Got It Made”, filmed in January 1989, with a great spontaneously-choreographed dance scene in front of Erasmus High School – which apparently doesn’t exist, anymore or was changed, due poor academic performance but a LOT of famous people went to school there.
The Vevo upload on YouTube is totally out of sync and it really pisses me off, so I won’t even post it on here!
I did a great editing job. You have to be a good dancer to be a good music video editor and I am both, if I do say so lol (I am half-Brazilian, after all…).
You have directed Hip Hop videos.
You have worked on YO MTV Raps.
You had a part in helping black culture grow.
I knew there was something about you that I really liked.
You had to have kicked it with some brothers back in the day.
A dynamite job…..has all the elements, seamlessly done, with a humorous, bent.
I was obsessed with hip hop during those years, it’s crazy to look back and think that I was watching your videos back then and had no idea who you were…lol. I live in CT, very close to Uconn and in the early 80s they had a campus radio show that played exclusively hip hop once a week for a few hours. The DJ was a guy named “DJ Doctor 9” and I found some of his old shows online recently. The creativity of that time was absolutely insane. It’s wild to see the Diddy scandal and what these satanist freaks managed to do with such an incredible art form.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1J7SZzjqF4
Totally tragic.
Yes, it really is painful. Every moment we expose them relieves the suffering though…I know that is true. Your efforts are not wasted in the least and neither are mine. I dream of celebrating one day soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-72Rmpzw1k