Local rappers, Mathmadix unveiled the official video to their new single "Puff Pass" this past weekend. The video is the first look at the group's long-awaited album, In a Class of Our Own.
The song's pretty self-explanatory, but the video debut marks the first time the outfit dabbles in video production.
We caught up with rapper Knawledg for the low-down on the music video that starts with the disclaimer that, "all individuals in this film are medical marijuana patients."
Follow the jump for his take on smoking the sticky-icky, the new album and that other controversial state law, Senate Bill 1070.
About "Puff Pass":
Knawledge: The Marijuana law was passed here in Arizona that says you can grow 12 marijuana plants legally. So the song was inspired of course by that act being passed and you know, we're really big into supporting Arizona State law.
About the video:
That's something we're starting to do ourselves. We're much more than just rap artists, we're definitely a label. I think a lot of people think we're just rappers but we do pretty much everything on the scale. This is the newest thing we want to bring to the table -- video production. Most of the video production and editing was done by Deztined, who's also a producer. The beat on the song was made by J-Beam who's an amazing artist and producer himself. And you know we're just wanting to get into this video stuff to how it's supposed to be done.
You know there's a lot of people dropping videos right now. You can go on anybody's Facebook and Youtube and you'll see people going out in front of brick walls and recording videos, and that's cool you know what I mean? I respect anything people try to do to progress but, the Math, we like to portray a certain image and that's one of sharpness and clarity. We want to try to deliver the best product we can do.
I didn't want to go to overboard with the whole marijuana theme, but we definitely wanted to get the point across and still look sharp and cool at the same time. We were just trying to shoot for what would capture the eye which is very difficult because like I said, we're in an era where videos are being dropped left and right. So we want to stay original and stay fresh.
This is the first one we've put out, but we're looking forward to dropping many more.
On the opening disclaimer:
We wanted to put that out there for sure. We didn't want any kind of trouble or problems (with the law). We wanted to do scenes with all our buddies and all, but we didn't want to break the law by smoking with people who don't have their (medical) cards.
Speaking about supporting state laws:
Being that I'm second generation in this country, my stance is: fuck SB1070. Excuse my Spanish, but I think its straight bullshit. We're going back into straight slavery times the way people are thinking. I would understand if it was something for everybody but they're just picking on one race. To me that's just disgusting.
I understand that there's bad people in every race, doing bad things but also in the Hispanic culture, there are a lot of people doing the hardest work. They're doing the shit that no one wants to do for the cheapest buck.
I know the law is the law. If they catch someone doing a crime or something, that's the way the cookie crumbles. If you took the risk, and you've done what you've done -- you knew what you were doing when you did it. But this whole racial profiling just off of what you look like is just bullshit.
I know the weed law is controversial too, but right now I'm doing things legally and that's the influence I'm trying to have. What we're trying to do is a lot bigger than just smoking. Believe me though, I'm not knocking anyone who smokes illegally, that's how I grew up smoking. I think that's how everyone grew up smoking.
On In A Class Of Our Own: It drops on April 20. Pretty coincidental, huh? But I think it's the best time to do it. Our goal is to drop new videos in February and March and then drop the album in April. So we're looking forward to getting it out as much as possible and making as much noise as we can.
I'm ecstatic about it for two reasons. One is that I'm just excited for the world to hear it. I was real excited for the world to hear "Puff Pass" and I wanted everyone to hear the sound we're bringing out of Arizona. Secondly, I'm excited that we can continue to move forward now. We have a lot of talent in our camp and we have a lot of music that needs to be released at a more rapid pace. We're real big on quality over quantity but today's market is starting to become the other way around. Our goal now is to drop them both at the same time.
It's hard work but it's something we're going to do. We're looking forward to 2012 and giving everybody a taste of what the Math really has. You can go to Youtube and sign up for Mathmadix TV, where you can catch my boy RIP A Cut, who's also a part of Mathmadix. He's got a new album out too so you can check out a couple of his videos there.
