Run The Jewels have shared the music video for their new single “Ooh LA LA” (feat. Greg Nice & DJ Premier), the first from the ferociously anticipated new album RTJ4. Shot in early March, just prior to the impact of Covid-19, the video was already a commentary on class divisions & capitalism, themes which have now been painfully revealed as more urgent and important to address than ever. Featuring cameos by hip hop legends Greg Nice, DJ Premier, Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha, a legion of dancers, a fleet of hot air balloons, and a mountain of burning money, the video is an ebullient celebration of resistance, illuminating the duo’s unique ability to straddle the worlds of pointed social commentary and raw, boisterous fun.
“We shot this video only a few weeks before the pandemic hit with no clue as to what the future held. the fact that we got the chance to do it is damn near miraculous in hindsight,” state the duo. “In conceptualizing the video with our friends Brian and Vanessa Beletic we imagined the world on the day that the age old struggle of class was finally over. A day that humanity, empathy, and community were victorious over the forces that would separate us based on arbitrary systems created by man. This video is a fantasy of waking up on a day that there is no monetary system, no dividing line, no false construct to tell our fellow man that they are less or more than anyone else. Not that people are without but that the whole meaning of money has vanished. That we have somehow solved our self created caste system and can now start fresh with love, hope and celebration. It’s a dream of humanity’s V-DAY… and the party we know would pop off.”
The song recently made a surprise debut in the season finale of the hit Netflix series Ozark, which just dethroned Tiger King as the network’s #1 show and helped make “Ooh LA LA” the #5 most Shazam’d song in the country. And now, just as this wildly infectious track starts making its presence felt on streaming & radio playlists, it gets turbo-charged with this scintillatingly satirical and gloriously epic visual treatment. The video was directed by Brian & Vanessa Beletic, the former of which previously directed the video for the group’s breakout hit “Legend Has It,” the gold-certified single from RTJ3 which made a big splash in the Super Bowl LI commercial for Marvel’s blockbuster film Black Panther.
In the wake of Covid-19, the group have also been sharing weekly free downloadable activity & coloring books, and just last week released an exclusive new line of t-shirts as a fundraiser for their tour crew, who are out of work until the duo’s postponed world tour with Rage Against the Machine gets underway.
