In the video for "Swervin In Bape," premiering today on The FADER, Toronto rapper Raz Fresco leads a pack of golden apes down a pleasant suburban street on trick bikes while an undercover cop tails the crew, and then all of a sudden: POP. Things take an even more bizarre twist as a cabal of sexy forensic agents show up to sweep the crime scene, and Tre Mission surfaces with a brand new verse that offsets Fresco's frenetic narrative. As the young rapper tells us over email, the video was inspired by classic Wu Tang Clan storytelling and bags of Bape.
I made Swervin in the winter of 2015 and it's one of my personal favorite songs on the album, Pablo Frescobar. I cooked up the beat when I was high as f*** off of some Purple Haze. It felt like some smoked out Aladdin magic carpet shit, and I knew I needed Tre Mission on it. I'd just finished collaborating with Raekwon on a song called "Influenza," and wanted to show him some love for looking out so I added a reference to his Purple Tape to the chorus.
When video director Abstrakte heard the song, he came to us with a crazy video treatment featuring gold apes, trick bikes, and jewelry story robberies. We came to the set with bags of Bape from mine and my friend The 6th Letter's personal collection, and this video is the end result.
