It's that time of year again. That time of year where I begin this blog by saying, "It's That time of year again." Well it is. So besides hearing what the top ten albums of 2011 were from some Asian kid, here's to looking back on this past year. Call it the Duy Nguyen Photo Hour.
We went to In Your Ear Recording Studios this night and to shoot a little video for an upcoming collaboration between Nickelus F and Lee Major for Nick's latest mixtape, Faces. Also to show off our new SHHO hoodies that we got printed that day. Ok, so Nick didn't end up using the track heard in the video and we weren't really recording to anything. We just wanted to make a video okay?
The picture above is of me telling Nick to freestyle into this mic we found and set up. Great direction from a great director. Looks so believable right? I'm pretty sure we were allowed to be in there.
January 15.
The next day I paid Monroe Park a visit along with the Just Plain Sounds crew as 0hbliv, Sleaze, Dizz, Ant and the guys played a set for what only I can remember as, "Don't Shut Down the Park Because Homeless People Live Here." It brought together a diverse group of minorities, hipsters, homeless folk, and other liberal leaning dudes. I guess it wasn't very diverse but it did spark a greater protest ten months later around the world. Something known as Occupy Wall Street led by Che Guevara. (These facts haven't yet been confirmed. So I might have spelled that dude's name wrong.)
The picture above may seem like your average photo of a dude smoking pot. Well guess what, it's not! It's a dude pretending to smoke pot. That's Corey Smith, later known as The Corey Smith, currently known as Corey McLemore, and when he discovers Seattle's Macklemore, he may just be known as the Rapper Formerly Known as Corey Smith and just go by a logo. The logo would be his name spelled out... There's some anti-realism in meaning for you thanks to four years wasted on a Philosophy degree. Anyways, this night we shot Corey's video for The Light which required many puffs to shoot. He faked it with a Black and Mild but ended up doing the real thing later anyways due to authenticity and "street cred".
January 22.
I think this was the second video I did for SK The Rapper. If you've never heard of this guy, he's a rapper. Other than that we shot the first half of this the year before. Crazy to think that was two years ago. This was the first video I shot but didn't edit. If you're down for a laugh do some research and watch it. It's funny because it is amazing. So were the dancers that didn't make the cut! Sorry ya'll.
For a good part of this year, most of the travel I did was to New York to hang out with famous people that no one really knows about. This is David Gensler the founder of the KDU. Him and his dudes are behind a bunch of cool things by big brands. This guy is crazy and scares me. He was cool to hang out with and allowed us to meet with him because he didn't know we were a bunch of kids who anything about nothing. We sure showed him... I ended up buying his Y-3s for $600. What a bad day.
Later that night we met up with Nitty Scott MC to shoot a little lookbook for SHHO's "Heritage Collection". Don't ask me why its called that. You might have seen her in this year's BET Cypher. Don't have much to say about this other than it was fun despite being in NY, whom I have a love hate relationship with. Did I use whom right?
Probably the nicest guy I've met in my time with SHHO. TONE is a photographer and the mind behind Live at the Loft, a dope house party/live music extravaganza in Jersey and the interwebs. I like to call him my mentor because he actually responded to an email I sent asking for some advice. How cool is that. Jay never hits me back about my beats. Forget that guy. Tone is the man. The man who I steal all my ideas from.
If I ever needed someone dead, I would call these guys. Then they would call their friends. This is The Sick Society, a clothing company that I helped upstart in Richmond. This Inception inspired photo was apart of our first lookbook I shot downtown. These guys have become my brothers that I never call. Fun as hell to be around and easy as shit to make laugh being the soft spoken Asian cat that I am.
I met a legend this day. He walked in with Ritz cracker crumbs on his face and talked about how he was apart of a high speed car chase in pursuit of a windswept $50 bill to buy turkey burgers. I shot a series of videos in promotion for Raekwon's now released Shaolin Vs Wu-Tang album. He is a cool dude who never let fame, money, or crack get to his head. He also thinks I look like Manny Pacquiao and that my girl was gorgeous. I was going to kick his ass but she is isn't she.
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