Pootie doesn’t need a lot of time to make a lasting impression. The Hudson County, NJ rapper just released the music video for “Riding” his second single off of his upcoming album The Prerequisite. The video is a minute and a half exposé of Pootie, producer Roper Williams, and video director Nathan Franx all performing at the peak of their powers. Roper gets the ball rolling, laying down one of their patented silky smooth loops for Pootie to glide right over, fit with gorgeous airy saxophone touches. Roper and Pootie are a match made in heaven, as evidenced by their excellent collaborative tape P, and “Riding” is no exception. Pootie rides the beat like a Benz on the autobahn, rapping about how he likes to “keep it cool when I move in the Cutlass” and how he “Never loved money just what I can do with it”. Pootie is completely at ease on the mic, getting quieter with repeated rhymes like he’s catching his thoughts and coming back like he never missed a step.
The Nathan Franx directed video for “Riding” is gorgeously shot. Franx also directed Pootie’s last video “Over Easy” and both have a retro aesthetic with an incredibly vibrant color palette. Everything pops, from the blue and green on Pootie’s jacket, to the gold Rollie, to the greenish-yellow grass, to Pootie’s pearly white smile as he appreciates a nice fat ass. Pootie said that the video was inspired by a summer where he grew a lot and honed his craft while making several psychedelic epiphanies, which makes sense because the video feels somewhere in between the video for Kendrick’s “Humble” and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The majority of the video has Pootie rapping while riding around in the aforementioned Cutlass while a fish-eye lens does backflips all around him, making the streets of Jersey look like bumper cars and a roller coaster in back to back shots. The videography impressed me to the point where I was running the video back over and over trying to figure out exactly how they got these shots. My best guess is they had a drone flying next to the car doing backflips as Pootie drove along but I got no clue really. Franx and Pootie really seem to have cued into a unique and gorgeous visual aesthetic with these last few videos, Pootie’s video presence is as compelling as his rhymes and Franx captures his vibe perfectly.
“Riding” is the second single off Pootie’s upcoming record The Prerequisite which will serve as a prequel for his hotly anticipated album 700 Parlay due out late this year. If these two tracks are indication we’re in store for more silky smooth loops on which Pootie will continue to rap his ass off. Hopefully we get a couple more of these gorgeous videos to boot.
Follow Pootie on twitter and insta and keep an eye on his website for more music in the near future.
