As 2020 rapidly came to a close, there were a few rappers who I familiarized myself with and almost became obsessed with as the final months of the year flew by. Out of all these insane talents, $NOT was undeniably the one artist who I never took my eye off of, and that hasn’t changed even slightly ever since I first started listening to him.
His album Beautiful Havoc was a masterpiece in my opinion, and I just loved how he was able to intermingle a variety of different vibes ranging from dark, ominous cuts to upbeat party anthems. Obviously, the features were also great after hearing names like Denzel Curry and Flo Milli, but my favorite song on the project had to be “Like Me” which featured Iann Dior. I was lucky enough to hear the project about a week prior to its release, and I remember that after listening to this hit, I went and raved to my friends about it, egging them on to listen when the album came out but not giving up the sanctity of the early access I was luckily granted.
Although you might’ve been bumping this track ever since it came out as I have, so I’m beyond excited that $NOT and Iann teamed up with director Omar Jones for a fantastic new music video. As it opens, the instrumental is slowed and distorted, prompting the camera to rotate along with a spinning wheel on a BMW E30, one of $NOT’s favorite automobiles, and zoom in as the beat begins to pick up the pace and head back to normality. After this, the old school car drifts around turns while $NOT takes some lovely ladies for joyrides, although he manages to remain fairly even-keeled and unemotive while standing around in his trademark tied hoodie in other scenes. Later on, Iann hops in another car and the two talents begin to race each other before joining forces outside of the vehicles and dancing around to the incredible song.
There might not be any crazy effects or animations whatsoever throughout this visual, but the two artists’ addictive charismas definitely go a long way while also pairing with the theme of the video as well. There are also some subtle things throughout such as a bird’s eye view of the race track that spells out $NOT’s name for a brief second earlier on, and although it might go right over certain viewers’ heads, it’s a really cool addition that definitely helps elevate the already awesome visual. I’m not entirely sure how many more music video additions to Beautiful Havoc we’ll receive considering $NOT seems to always be on his grind releasing new music, but I’m still perfectly happy bumping the album and especially “Like Me”, so make sure to peep the new music video as soon as possible.