As 404vincent aptly croons during “Pisces,” he’s “almost famous,” and the storyline for the first track begins with a drowsy 404vincent sipping coffee, relaxing on the roof of his house, and working in the studio while rolling his eyes at a disapproving mother and girlfriend, knowing that bigger things are on the horizon. Despite a valiant attempt to placate matters with a giant stuffed bear, things take a turn for the worse. As the story shifts towards “Exposure,” featuring PmBata, 404vincent flies across the country and finds himself at a backyard house party. Now collaborating with other artists and waving off texts that remind him of his old life, the second video is interspersed with shots of Hollywood and the LA skyline. The lyrics boast that he “came a long way from the North,” but he still shows love to his Canadian roots as the party atmosphere receives a blanket of snow.
“Exposure” leans a little bit more towards the psychedelic side, but both tracks are centered by 404vincent’s obvious knack for catchy pop-rap melodies that won’t depart the inner workings of your brain easily. Judging by the success of his latest video-single outing, it seems like he won’t be returning to his former Ottawa lifestyle anytime soon.
RANGE checked in with 404vincent about the video-making process.
Congrats on the new video! How did you get connected to director Logan Meis?
I believe Sony already had a working relationship with him, so they asked him to work on a treatment for me. I ended up having a phone call with him, talking about concepts and storyline for the video. We connected mad well and it was a really great experience overall, super great team.
Why did you decide to combine these two songs into a single video? What was the creative vision behind this project?
When I made these songs, I was kind of in the same headspace, they both represent the same thing to me but from different ends of a timeline. “Pisces” is about before music was as serious for me, before I had moved out of my moms or dropped out, and it encompasses a relationship I was in that just didn’t work out. I wasn’t the greatest boyfriend at the time and when it ended, I was immediately diving headfirst into music. (The video transition says 6 months later but it’s really like 4 years). “Exposure,” years later in LA experiencing the life I was manifesting back then, being grown, more mature, and really being myself. The videos together for me just feels like a final step of growing up.
What was it like being on set making the video?
Shooting both of these videos was extremely fun. It’s actually crazy cause I met my manager for the first time at my “Pisces” shoot, there’s been a lot of experiences like that being from so far away and having to network online. “Exposure” was dope too because there was a lot of stuff I learned and plenty of laughs, we just all got along mad well and it was nice.
Who have been some of your musical inspirations?
Most of my current inspiration comes from my peers but growing up it was almost everything I was around. I liked listening to Lil Wayne, Drake and Kanye a lot in elementary school and I think being young during the Soulja Boy Limewire era, it set me up in a position where I was around a lot of good inspirational music for a lot of years.
What’s your typical approach to creating a song? Do you have a certain approach to making these catchy melodic rap tunes, or are you hoping to bend genre even more in the future, like on “Pisces”?
I normally start with a loop or melody and then write/record a vocal melody over it and write a hook. Other times I start with a full beat and kind of do a similar process but instead I freestyle melodies over the entire beat until I make something cool to listen to. I like to make music that I enjoy sonically, it feels like I am constantly evolving, and I can definitely see genre bending in that growth.
