The four UNO students (and roommates) who make up 166 Productions have a lot to say about deciding to film a documentary about rap music in their hometown of Baton Rouge.
KC Simms, one of the filmmakers in 166 Productions (who already have the psychedelic, Travis Scott-influenced short film Do you love me? under their belt) says, “We have a lot of faith in this project, mostly because growing up in Baton Rouge you constantly hear ‘no one supports anyone here,’ ‘people hate each other here,’ ‘there’s nothing here,’ ‘you have to leave to do anything.’ Although these things may be true to an extent, we wanted to change that. We heard these things while we were growing up and we decided to create a new reality instead of accepting the one we were given. Baton Rouge is a city that’s nuanced and multilayered and we wanted to document that in all its beauty. Baton Rouge is also a city with deep emotional scars and we felt that if we could show a community that’s united then we’d be doing our part in making sure that the next generation can look and see a better Baton Rouge.”
Photo by Trenity J. Thomas @504degrees
“This project” is titled WTF! which actually stands for “We The Future!,” a feature length documentary about the rap scene in Baton Rouge. According to Simms, the idea to film the music laden documentary came immediately after wrapping promo for Do you love me? with director and collaborator Maison Harris, which premiered in February of this year. Several weeks after the film premiered at a UNO party, COVID brought university operations to a halt. But that didn’t keep Simms and Harris from brainstorming about how to make use of all their newfound free time.
“With the pandemic in full swing we recognized the opportunity to not only document the artists but also how the world has shifted since then,” explains Simms. Necessitated by the circumstances, Simms and Harris assembled a much smaller crew than was needed in their previous projects, the 166 Productions team.
“In total you have Maison and I directing, Braelyn Collier shooting behind the scenes footage, and Kirkland Sheppard providing the soundtrack. I’ve known Kirk and Braelyn since we were kids and Maison and I went to high school together.”
This time Music Supervisor Kirkland Sheppard had an innovative and collaborative goal in mind. Just like so many other Louisiana-based content creators, the entire team came up with a way to make their work stand out from the crowd.
“What’s really special about Kirk’s role this time around is that we had an idea about creating a beat and having some of the rappers rap over this beat. Kirk was able to add the vocals that these artists recorded to the beat and now we have 2 full songs with different artists from Baton Rouge. Some of these artists haven’t even worked with each other before! It’s a proud accomplishment and it really adds to the ‘uniting Baton Rouge’ aspect that we’ve sought after.”
In total, the production team interviewed, collaborated with, filmed, and more with 16 artists in the Baton Rogue area which include Michael Armstead, Caleb Brown, a rap group Col-Der-Sac, Jose Xavier, Tre Louis, Joe Scott, Ken Aniah, Quadry, Safari, Cokeish, Jireh and Tommy Rouge, Lango, Dq Rogers, Brandom the Goat, Cremosoup, and Jazz Bandito.
Simms is quick to acknowledge Sheppard’s importance in the process of making a documentary about the music scene, citing the symbiotic relationship music and film share. “Filmmaking and music are both mediums through which people tell stories. I’ve listened to some songs and after watching the music video for the song, got an entirely different meaning and appreciation for it. Artists should honestly take more care into making a good visual for their songs just because it adds and extra dimension to the art that they are producing.”
The first semester senior Privateer is enthusiastic about their upcoming feature, which he hopes will debut in the winter of 2020. And perhaps what is most impressive besides covid not dampening the undergrads’ spirits for making cinema, but that they are completely funding the project themselves. Simms is excited to shine a light on the Baton Rouge rap scene as soon as possible.
“I believed the messages I was told growing up about Baton Rouge (that the support system in Baton Rouge is nonexistent) but I was surprised to see that in the last few years a growing circle of artists was actually already formed. Baton Rouge was already uniting in the underground musician scene. The support system could definitely be improved though, because a lot of people still have that underlying negative thought about what Baton Rouge is. When I speak about support I’m speaking about a particular example that example being Atlanta. Atlanta is a dominating force right now in the music industry because of how many of their big artists have put back into the community. There are many stories of artists paying for each others studio time and even stories of artists building brand new studios and putting them in their communities. They are actively helping each other that’s how I’m defining ‘support.’ Are you putting in the work to help your community succeed? The lack of that support seems to hurt a lot of budding talent in Baton Rouge but these [performers] still find ways to get their music heard.”
Follow KC Simms’ progress on his film via Instagram.
