I recently had the pleasure of working with Curly Castro on a video for his latest single, They Call Me Castro.  Produced by Blueprint, the track is from his upcoming Fidel LP, that should be available sometime in Jan. 2012.

When it comes to hip-hop, I grew up on groups like Public Enemy, BDP, LL Cool J and De La Soul, leaning more toward the politically charged (Dead Prez, Nas) and the rough and rugged (Wu-Tang). So I was pretty blown away when I heard Winston’s Appeal, Curly Castro’s full length from earlier this year, which combined all those influences and filtered it through his own effortless yet raw style. Yeah, it was about lyrics and skill, but it was also about content, which I respected. Old school with a reggae influence, slightly militant but not without heart and humor. So I was super excited to work with him on this video, because I think he brings back a lot of the edge that hip-hop originally had.

Much of the video was shot in Oct/Nov at the Occupy Philly site, on three separate occasions, including his live performance there from last November.  The archival black and white footage of the Black Panthers and the march on Selma, Alabama was taken from the National Archive and is listed as public domain. The nighttime performance footage was shot one night in West Philly, guerilla style.

And for those wondering if we’re related – well, we might not have fallen from the same family tree, but we come from common ground.

Anyway, I hope you dig it – I’m pretty proud of this one. And be sure to check out more music on Curly Castro bandcamp page.

For those who missed it’s official release yesterday, Zilla Rocca dropped a new music vid. for his song, Full Spectrum.  Taken from his excellent Nights and Weekends EP, the track features a guest verse by Has-Lo.  The film was shot and edited by myself and Justin Clowes (aka SlowMotionTrax).

We shot the whole thing on August 29 in Asbury Park, NJ, the day after Hurricane Irene blew through town, leaving a few spots without power and more than a couple of trees knocked down.  Asbury ‘s a cool town – pinball museum, paranormal museum, the Wonder Bar, good pizza – and provided a pretty cool backdrop for a rag-tag group of misfits  running around it’s streets with outdated super 8 film cameras.  The people were friendly and everyone was super nice. Good times, good times. Thanks to everyone involved.

Rhymestreet magazine followed along and did a behind-the-scenes photo feature in  thier Oct-Nov issue.  You can check it out here.

And for all those keeping score and wondering what ever happened to the Weak Stomach video – it’s finished and has just been sitting quietly for the past 9 months waiting for it’s release.  Honestly, I don’t know what the hold-up is, something to do with lawyers and red-tape. Hopefully soon.

And below are some photos from the shoot, taken by Justin Clowes.  Check out his flickr page for more visual goodness.

And, as promised, below’s the short interview I did with the Slingluff Gallery about Automatic Amnesia – hope to see everyone at the opening this Saturday.

Joe Castro at the gallery. from Slingluff Gallery on Vimeo.

Skateboardanimation from Tilles Singer on Vimeo.