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Just to explain in a view sentences what the “Video Rack Series” is about. The name is kinda self-explanatory anyway. I invite artists over and have them talk about one of their videos. Basically this is all “Behind the Scenes” material.

LMNZ from Berlin City is my guest once again, keepin´it thorough with the “Gasmask” (feat. Mike Eagle, Tech and Zela Suka).

Gasmask. That’s the most experimental song on “Worldwide Rap” and it is dealing with the topic of war. Open Mike Eagle (Project Blowed, LA) came up with the first part and the idea to the song after I sent him the beat. Later Tech (Russian) and I (German) recorded our verses and I had the idea to include a female singer to give the song another new facet: Zela Suka (Albanian).
While the song developed I always changed the instrumental and it’s crazy to see how it elevated.
Some say it’s a brave choice to make a video for “Gasmask” due to the fact that there were other tracks on “Worldwide Rap” that definitely are more appealing to a wider audience. I wanted to put emphasis on this song though because to me it’s very special and I like the feeling and message a lot.

There is no chorus and the form is pretty much free. Compared to normally structured songs with bridges and hooks it may sometimes even seem senseless and chaotic how the song is build up but I wanted it to be exactly like that because war appears to be the same way.

Dark synthesizer sounds are combined with organic instruments of all kind and the style even drifts to free jazz at times. Hard raps and scratches meet guitar / gun noise and melancholic singing.
Content: 3 soldiers describe their feelings they got being on the battlefield. Also there is the wife of one of the soldiers who tells the listener about her feelings while she is seeing the war scenes on TV.
The video is more of a short film and inspired by the lyrics. Basically you follow the fate of a soldier (sniper) who is part of a group in the battle field. You see him dealing with all kinds of emotion, thinking of his former life, wife and wishing to be in a peaceful environment again before he is overwhelmed by craziness and in the end is shot. His team tries to rescue him. Do they succeed? You can find out in the video.

I wrote the script together with my friend Jorge Campos from Mexico and it took us quite a while to make it come to life since we had a low budget and big plans to make it look as realistic as possible. Of course people are spoiled by Hollywood blockbusters when it comes to war movies so it was not an easy task to avoid that people think our attempt is ridiculous.
In the end we shot most of the video at an old softair-area outside of Berlin after we had checked out a lot of other places.
A funny anecdote is that when we shot my death scene I fell into a rusty nail while I was playing dropping dead and really hurt myself so we had to use less film blood.
I edited the video at least 100 hours since it got so many cuts, we had so much material and because we just had used the cheap equipment that was available so it took a lot of effort to make it look kind of cool with colour correction and other effects.
Thanks again to everybody who helped us realizing our vision (see credits at the end of the video). We are proud that we were able to finish it and hope that people like it and feel the song. You can find the full English translation of the lyrics here.

What are your thoughts my people? (song, video, war, state of the world…)

Check the full project and music at www.worldwide-rap.com and support it by buying CDs, Downloads or Merch if you’re feeling it. Thanks a lot!