While at DD172 in NYC, I had the opportunity and pleasure to interview Coodie & Chike, who along with Damon Dash, are changing the way music videos are filmed and consumed.
As part of Dame’s latest venture, Creative Control, Coodie & Chike have already amassed an impressive catalog, filming new “music visuals” (as Coodie calls them) for Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Curren$y, The Cool Kids, The Black Keys and others. However, don’t look at these guys as new jacks to the game, as they’ve been around for quite a while.
Hailing from Chicago, Coodie was one of the heads behind the famed and ground-breaking Windy City hip-hop program, Channel Zero. A few years later he linked up with New Orleans-born Chike, who was then working at MTV, in a chance meeting and their relationship was born. Shortly thereafter, these two visionaries were recruited by Kanye West to film his breakthough 2003 video for “Through The Wire”, which was edited and created after hours in the MTV studios.
In the interview above, Coodie & Chike discuss how they hooked up, their early days with Kanye West (Coodie used to follow him everywhere with a camera), how they met Dame, plans for Creative Control, future videos and projects. It’s truly amazing what these guys are doing, and as you can see from the video, DD172 is always buzzing with a lot of artists coming and going.
Stay tuned for more news as Coodie has plans to return to Chicago and shoot a few clips for some local artists, and also plans on unleashing plenty of never-before-seen clips from Channel Zero, featuring some of Chicago’s biggest stars.
Very good, can't wait to hear more about Coodie, maybe he'll come back to Ctown for a few more shows.
Good informative post. Thanks