Black Dave – Stay Black (Mixtape) & Muthaf*ck My Enemies (Video Directed by Jason Ano)

Black Dave (nèe: Dave Willis) embodies skateboarding. Literally transitioning from grind to grind, the young Bronx native has always stayed true to his heritage, looking past skeptics and posers alike to accrue a real credibility in both the hip-hop and skateboarding scenes in New York. Lupe Fiasco, Hopsin, Pharrell and most recently Lil Wayne have all attempted to use hip-hop as a channel to capitalize on skateboarding’s ‘cool’ factor, all with varying degrees of success. Skateboards are cool, but the image is indefinitely more appealing when the rapper knows how to skillfully maneuver one. Enter Black Dave, who for years has been compiling mixtapes, live performances and entertaining music videos into an impressive musical resumè. His latest mixtape, Stay Black, can be interpreted as a summary of the artist’s driven demeanor. Not unlike early Jeezy mixtapes, Stay Black represents both his city (New York) and retains a certain unwavering determination to succeed throughout the lyricism. Accompanying the mixtape release is the Jason Ano-directed visual presentation of “Muthaf*ck My Enemies.” Drawing inspiration from Kids, the video features stunning shots that give an accurate depiction of New York youth culture. Enjoy!

“Working on this video for Black Dave was a creative relief for me because I want to focus on cinema this year. For the treatment of the music video, we decided to pay homage to one of my favorite films, “KIDS”. The entire process from inception to execution was so organic because Dave, coming from the Supreme cult and being a skater himself, truly embodied the lifestyle that movie portrayed. Just like how I would imagine Larry Clark or Harmony Korine in the midst of filming their movies, a lot of crazy things actually happened and we took a lot of risks to get this video made. With blind faith, I handed Darnel my RED rig to hold while he skated and during the rooftop scene, we had a replica gun with no markings on it indicating that it was fake. In the middle of flashing the gun and throwing up 40s, two undercover detectives rushed into our set, but fortunately with a little bit of speech-craft, we were able to finish and get the job done. It was a crazy day to film a music video, but for the other skaters, this was a daily routine.” -Jason Ano