JME and Novelist link up with Big Zuu for a music video for “Offline”, one of the most popular cuts from Big Zuu’s most recent album. The claymation video created by Edem Wornoo and William Child features the three MCs each individually hunting internet trolls, taking them offline. Watch the new video below:
The track is taken from Big Zuu’s debut album Navigate, an album which boasts a wealth of features, including AJ Tracey, who is Zuu’s cousin, Unknown T, and Kojey Radical. Despite coming up as a musician, a member for the MTP crew, Big Zuu now has more stripes to his name in his television career, hosting Big Zuu’s Big Eats on Dave. The show, which originally ran for nine episodes last year, had features including Jimmy Carr, Josh Widdicombe, and Rosie Jones.
Exercising the influence he currently has within UK culture, it is no surprise the Big Zuu commanded such a huge feature list for a debut album. Despite the amount of contemporary artists on the album, the track “Offline” has a particularly old-school feel, with grime veteran JME delivering a very straight forward chorus between grimey verses. Novelist, known for his old-school style, reinforces this feel, over a dub-like Sir Spyro beat. Truly we have travelled back in time to grime’s golden era.
The well-made video features stop motion versions of Big Zuu, JME, and Novelist each showing up at the houses of internet trolls to give them a proper thrashing. Bad-mouthed trolls are getting tied up, heads smashed in, and eyebrows shaved off by the three musicians, juxtaposing the childlike and juvenile style of animation with violence.
Video makers Edem Wornoo and William Child collaborated for the first time to produce the video for “Offline”. William Child’s studio, Gravy Mercedes, hosted Edem Wornoo for the first time. Edem Wornoo was highly complementary of Child’s attention to detail, telling llbonline that “he [William Child] should have his own TV show because every time his Claymation brought one of our scenes to life I genuinely laughed out loud.” Speaking on the creative process, William Child says: “It was my first time sharing directing responsibilities with someone else, meaning a totally different workflow to that I’m used to. Edem is incredibly talented and the clarity of his initial vision for the video made it super easy to understand and then execute”.
Listen to Big Zuu’s most recent album Navigate below: