Pentagram has released a rap video for Gamechanger, an anti-jargon tirade that was first released as a Pentagram holiday card in 2014.
The video is directed by Drew Bierut and produced by Superseed Productions with animated titles by Steven Qua and additional music by Jesse Hackett.
Here Naresh Ramchandani explains how Pentagram came to make its first rap video.
“We originally published Gamechanger as an epic poem, a kind of anti-jargon Odyssey or Aeneid, a seven-verse entreaty to all agencies and execs who habitually assault the English language with their business buzzwords. But when it came to making a video, we realised that epic poems are so two millennia ago and that maybe a bit of H.O.V.A would work better than a bit of Homer. And so our rap video was born.
"It was beautifully shot in LA by Drew Bierut who led us through a fascinating transatlantic casting process in which we saw video auditions from many different actors ranging from the pumped and the passive-aggressive to the hypersexualised and the meek. Eventually we cast Ngozi Y'ileese because of her effortless rapping and her winning C-suite smile. She is accompanied by Leum Kerzic, the intern-come-beatboxer also known as Zom-B, who brings an added texture and puppy-dog energy to Ngozi's silky rap.
"Drew filmed the video in one gamechanging take with Ngozi delivering her two minute rap directly to camera in an unstoppable paradigm-shifting performance. On top of this rap are simple titles that name and shame her jargon. The titles are taken from the type that Marina designed for last year’s Gamechanger holiday card and have been playfully animated by Steven Qua, who most recently created the new on-screen identity for Channel 4. We added an extra dose of oomph by commissioning a backing track for the rap created by Jesse Hackett, a brilliant solo artist and touring member of Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz.
"So here it is, Pentagram’s first rap video. Will people like it? No idea. Does an overjargonized world need it? Hell yes."
