This week, JustArts talked music with Osaze Akerejah '14, who is a hip-hop recording artist under the moniker Saz.E, and David French '13, an arts student who directed Saz.E's forthcoming music video for the song "Matt Murdock."

JustArts: Would you each tell us a bit about your experience in the music industry? How do you guys work together? 

Osaze Akerejah: I've been recording since I was about 14. Through high school, I kept recording and kept building up myself and building up my name. Then I went off to college and started networking more, met more people in Boston who wanted to work with me, started making beats. And then I met David to work on the video for this big song I have called "Matt Murdock," and I really wanted to have like a very, very interesting visual for it. I felt like he was going to be able to capture this cinematic-type feel to it. I didn't want it to look like a regular music video. 

David French: So I grew up in Hickville, Nowhere, basically-like in the middle of Texas. So there wasn't really a music industry. I very specifically came to Brandeis because it was near Boston. Since the beginning, I was involved in Punk Rock n' Roll club and I started filming concerts and then this year, I decided I was going to make a short film, and to get ready for that, I decided to start with music videos, because you can just start with a visual concept and just go. 

JA: Very cool! Osa, the new video is coming out very soon. Would you tell us about the process of writing the song and creating the video concept? 

OA: I was listening to Florence + The Machine, and I hit up my producer from Chicago...So he took that, and he came back with "Matt Murdock," which is this really pretty Florence sample with really heavy drums, and it sucks you into this beautiful, yet dark world at the same time. And then when I kept thinking "darkness," I wanted to write something about my frustration with people not seeing artistic vision.
Artists will have a vision for something, and the masses won't see it, and you're wondering, "why?" So "Matt Murdock" is kind of nerdy. It's the alter ego of Daredevil, the superhero who's blind. So I took that and I wrote the song, trying to weave metaphors of sight and blindness, into this record. 

JA: David,could you tell us about how you took this project from concept to film? 

DF: I met with Saz.E, and we talked about some stuff. He mentioned that "we should have a blind guitarist guy," so I was just trying to get a visual concept of who we would cast or how we would handle that for the film. And I just hit "blind guitarist" into a Google search, and came up with pictures of Blind Willie Johnson, and then it snapped into place. 

There's actually a surprising number of blind Blues musicians-the reason for going with that is that these guys were not appreciated in their time. That kind of sinks into the metaphor, A) about blindness, but also B) about people not appreciating great art or great talent. So it's taking the idea-Saz.E's idea-about desiring recognition, and it references it, but then it also folds it in on itself.

JA: David, it sounds like you have your hands full with several film projects. Are you hoping to make this a career after graduating from Brandeis? 

DF: That's a complicated question. I decided I don't want to do film. Not like "typical" film. I'd be interested in doing independent projects, but if I actually go into an industry, I'm actually thinking about video games. Because there is a lot of weird, experimental stuff going on in that field, versus, still in film, you have to play the game. 

JA: Osa, what does the new video say about your current direction as an artist?

OA: I think one of my biggest frustrations is, as a hip-hop artist, people always try to put us in a box. And the problem is that a lot of us say, "Okay, that's cool. I'll just keep making stuff that's in that box." And I kind of feel like you should just make music for the sake of making music. I like sampling these weird Indie acts or these foreign folks...making visuals that are not run-of-the-mill. There's no booty-shakin' chicks in this video. We didn't have the budget for it-but still. I probably wouldn't put it in there anyway. I'm very inspired by the very forward, creative thinkers of the genre. Kanye West is my favorite. So it's basically going to be about creativity and no rules-no rules but my own. 

JA: What do you hope that new fans will take away from it?

OA: Stop being blind to new artists. Just because most of the radio hip-hop is really bad, don't count out all these new guys. Some of these new guys might actually pop up and surprise you.

-Rachel Hughes