Far East Movement On How To Be “The Illest,” Collaborating With Maker Studios, And Crazy Fan Tumblr Memes

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  • Far East Movement stops by What’s Trending to chat with Shira Lazar and Ethan Newberry about how to be “The Illest,” what it’s like to collaborate with Maker Studios and taking submissions for crazy fan-created memes.

    The LA-based hip-hop foursome proved their ability to break the mold by releasing their new music video for “The Illest” on Maker Studios’ Maker Music YouTube channel. “We have some friends over at Maker,” Kev Nish says, pointing out that they wanted to do something different to drop this tune. “We heard it was the first of its kind,” he adds of their method of teaming with Maker. “We sat down at first and played them the song and they loved it.” The result was an awesome cross-pollination of talent and content.

    “I think it’s definitely a new model,” Nish says of how they released the video. “A lot of music pops off on YouTube first or online first, and sometimes these music videos don’t really get seen on TV […] Finding out cool, creative ways to release on YouTube or online is the new way to put out stuff.”

    It sounds like some crazy stuff went down during filming, too! Like dude stripping? “A lot of the Maker dudes are really cool,” Nish says. “On set, they turned it up more than any other video we’ve ever had.”

    So, aside from literally becoming sick, how can anyone actually be “The Illest”? Obviously, the group can’t reveal that magic formula, but Nish does tell us that the inspiration for the feel of the song and video came from a scene in the movie, “Office Space.”

    He says, “Dude’s in the car and he’s just reciting this ill, gangster rap and then all of a sudden somebody walks by and he’s just chilling.”

    The band also revealed that they’d be open to another collaboration with Tasha Reid and Tiger JK. “That would be cool,” Nish says. “Actually we talked about it. We talked about doing one more song with Tiger JK and since Tasha’s his wife, hopefully she’ll get on there for a verse.”

    Finally, they help us try to understand what’s going on behind the brains and bling of enigmatic hip-hop icon Riff Raff, a.k.a. Jody Highroller. “We took a lot of time to talk a lot about philosophers, like Plato and his thoughts on Aristotle,” DJ Virman says. We played a lot of chess. He’s actually amazing. He was captain of his chess team in high school.” You don’t say!

    “And,” Nish adds, “he makes a great Early Grey.” In Versace tea cups, of course.

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