MAYBACH MUSIC GROUP:
SPIFF TV
Words by Julia Beverly Are you still doing the Spiff TV DVDs? I’m going to do another one soon, but it’s a lot of legal bullshit I’m dealing with from the first one. I did a bad deal with these people in L.A. and they took advantage of me. They mass pressed it up and I didn’t know better. So, fuck them. But I’m still doing my thang with the beats and signing producers and artists. I’ve signed like ten artists to Ross’ roster, including five producers. I signed The Olympicks; they produced a lot of shit. They’re out of Detroit. I signed two more producers out of Dallas called The Transformers, and two writers out of Dallas called Suede Royale and EQ. They’ve been writing and doing a lot of shit. Suede is an artist too. He’s a problem. I’ve also got Cash Chris out of Orlando that I signed to Ross. How does it feel to be taken seriously now instead of just being an intern? It’s a grind. After you show you’ve got an ear for this, it gets easier. Now they’re getting paid $15k a track. The producers know that once they get the music to me, it’s going to get to the right people. If you make beats and you’re trying to get your beats placed, you can send them to RickRossBeats@ gmail.com. Do you think it’s harder to sell beats now that there are so many producers trying to get in the game? It’s all about quality. Everybody’s trying to make beats on their laptop on Frooty Loops or something, but you’ve really got to know what you’re doing with the sound. If you can do that, you’re going to get paid for it.
Orlando-based video director SPIFF TV started out hustling as an intern for OZONE, Strictly Streets, and DJ Nasty and the Nasty Beatmakers. His relationship with DJ Nasty and DJ Khaled, along with his aspirations of becoming a video director, eventually led to a full-time position working with Rick Ross. Spiff has directed dozens of viral videos for standout records like “Mafia Music 1” and “Mafia Music 2” and serves as an A&R for Ross’s Maybach Music record label. What are some videos you’ve directed? I directed “Mafia Music,” the first one off Deeper Than Rap. I did the new “Mafia Music 2.” I did “Ciroc Stars” for Chester French featuring Diddy and Jadakiss. I did the Waka Flocka “Oh Let’s Do It” remix featuring Diddy and Ross, and a whole lot of viral videos for Ross that you’ve probably seen online. How did the idea come about to put out a whole bunch of viral videos for Deeper Than Rap? While we were recording Deeper Than Rap we were just shooting a video for damn near almost every song on the album. Now you see a lot of other artists kinda following that formula, dropping videos every other day and every other week. We started that pace. We just shot a video everywhere we went, whether it was the Bahamas or London or wherever. Before you linked up with Ross, you were working with DJ Nasty. What were you doing with him? Helping getting his beats placed and finding producers. I found The Incredibles and signed them to Nasty; they were producing for Jeezy and Ross, and they’ve got a track on Jay-Z’s album. Khaled manages them too. So that’s what I was doing. Before that I was working with you, you know, vintage OZONE. Crazy shit. With you, I was taking pictures for the magazine and seeing a lot of shit going on. So [I was thinking] damn, we’re with these [artists] every day. Let me just pick up a [video] camera and see what happens from there. Then I dropped the first Spiff TV DVD that was in Wal-Mart and everything. It was a lot of Hip Hop and Reggaetone shit, just linking with artists. Plus [Rick] Ross manages me now so he does all that shit; he plugs me with people like Diddy. I’m shooting for Diddy now too. I’ll fly out and do a bunch of shit for him. I’m just getting it in. 42 // OZONE MAG
When you film a viral video for Ross do you come up with a treatment or concept or just freestyle it? Sometimes, if Ross just feels like shooting, we freestyle it. I find something dope and we just do it. But usually I have a week or two to prep for it and write a treatment. He has a lot of ideas, so he’ll give me some ideas and we just mash together and write the ideas down and go at it. London was kinda crazy. We did a video in front of Buckingham Palace; Ross was smoking weed like, “I always wanted to blow one down with the Queen, but fuck it.” We shot in St. Maarten and St. Thomas too; we just went to Barbados and shot some crazy stuff over there. We always try to capture the essence of it. If we were in Jamaica we would get the guys bringing us fresh lobster and cooking it right in front of our face. We do it like that. The internet has opened up a lot of doors for directors such as yourself, because back in the day you would need a large budget and a lot of equipment to film a music video. The thing that’s so dope now is that you can reach everybody at one time by just turning the camera on and sending it out. You can prep them with trailers. I make sure I get the videos to MTV and MTV Jams and they put it up right away. As far as editing, they have better and easier programs coming out all the time. You always have to be a step ahead of the game. Everybody can’t see what you’re shooting with now. I’m online every day trying to see what the new shit is. What about on the editing side, did you kinda teach yourself? Yeah, I sit down with my editor and tell him what I want visually and graphically. I know all the shots I shot that look great. You might give footage to an editor without saying anything and he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, so he won’t cut it right. He may not know what’s fly or not, so you’ve got to show them exactly how to put it together. Are you mainly focused on doing Rick Ross videos? I’m doing a lot of other things too. I’m doing stuff with Diddy, Chester French, Pharrell’s group. I did a video for Clinton Sparks and Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes; we shot that in Union Square. They did a Fresh Prince and Jazzy-type theme. They were beat boxing and shit. I shot a video for Desert Storm’s artist for DJ Clue, Ghost featuring Fab and Ross; that’s a good one. Is there anything else you’d like to say? Get at me on Twitter, @SpiffTVFilms. Shout out to Maybach Music, Maybach Films, Gucci Pucci, Rick Ross, Mercedes Streets, and JB for giving me a job back in the day riding out in that small ass car. //