Yung Lean's Inner Turmoil Takes Center Stage in "Outta My Head" Music Video
Directed by Anton Tammi.
Yung Lean has shared a new music video for his latest album Starz, tapping Anton Tammi to direct a visual for project highlight “Outta My Head.” The track itself is a poignant look at Lean’s rise from meme-ish rapper to hip-hop innovator. On the track, he talks about his legacy (“Twenty for a verse, Yung Lean, I’m everywhere”) and his maturation over his career (“Sub-zero ice, leave it all behind”), ultimately calling on himself to focus on his personal well-being.
The visual for the track exemplifies much of this inner turmoil, with the Sad Boys frontman placed inside a solemn room at the fictional Starz Motel. The Swede can be seen ruminating in the bed of a trashed room, whereby half-full food plates, cigarette butts, and damaged furniture are plentiful. As the video progresses, Lean’s seemingly manic alter-ego becomes full-frontal as he tapes his face, cradles a fire extinguisher, and more.
Anton Tammi notes that the video came from a chance encounter with Lean in Stockholm after he was stuck their due to the coronavirus pandemic:
I had wanted to work with Jonatan for years… We met in Stockholm finally this year 2020. As I got stuck to the city due to the corona-situation, we started to talk more and more about this character of the lonely man. Jonatan knows a lot about movies, and we have a similar taste around certain themes and styles of film making, aesthetic and humor. For [the] “Outta My Head” video, the big inspiration was the Dogme 95 film-making style. Think of the Riget TV series or Festen by Thomas Vinterberg, or Dancer In The Dark etc… The attempt to strip down all artificial movie making tricks and focus purely on the story and the acting. I think it’s rare to do a music video in this style. But We loved the challenge and went full on in shooting everything in one room hand held doc style. There was only three people in the room: myself, our DP Erik Henriksson and Jonatan. I think Jonatan is a talented actor and me and him share the same attitude towards improvisation, and how to get into character. I really think it shows in our video – his acting is so real, you think almost if this really happened to him.
Watch the visual for “Outta My Head” above.
In case you missed it, Yung Lean recently announced that he’d be donating streaming royalties and merch profits to Black Lives Matter and various bailout funds.
