Baauer’s “Higher” collaboration with New York production legend Just Blaze probably won’t even scrape the heights hit by “Harlem Shake,” but it has a much better video. The six-minute clip directed by famed visual artist Nabil (who once shot Frank Ocean for SPIN) is being tagged as a mini-movie, and rightfully so: it’s a coming-of-the-age story that follows a group of children who learn to become fighters in India.
Here’s Nabil explaining the concept in an interview with FADER: “I decided to shoot in Kerala, India because that’s where some of the oldest forms of martial arts came from … We had great luck with an amazing crew and group of warriors to work with. None were actors but they had such great personalities that it felt like the acting exuded naturally.” Speaking of nature, they shot the thing during monsoon season, so batten those hatches.
