(Photo By Facebook)
414 Video Spotlight is a brand new video based program giving Milwaukee artists of all kinds the opportunity to be heard & seen in a fresh way. It airs on the local My 24 network every Saturday at midnight. It runs for about an hour and is orchestrated as well as hosted by Melvin James. Recently, the show sponsored a cypher where rappers had to prove their skills to the people via a brief video. Once the videos aired, they were placed on the show’s Facebook Page for voting/liking. There were two rounds and the winner of the entire contest was just recently announced. It turned out to be one of The Illixer‘s favorite emcees/producers/engineers, Trunk Bussa. He took the crown with 600 plus votes/likes which put him about 40 steps ahead of his competitor. He is now officially the video cypher king and will be the man to beat in the next cypher to come. He also took home a $250 cash prize. Which is pretty sweet. His first entry can be seen here and the entry that brought him to victory can be seen below.
The song/video that Trunk chose to compete with is titled “Dig Your Own Ditch.” It’s a hard ball number set to a conventional yet enticing beat with a daunting message to his opposition. After all how does one respond to lines like: “Murdering rappers I love that. I’m a have that n—a like f–k rap. So this is the end of your career. Starting as soon as my music hit yo fans ears. They gone slap five. Praise Trunk, I’m like a rap god. If I spit on you n—as, you baptized. Give a f–k about making yo top five.” The bravado in those bars is crazy. But Trunk definitely backs it up. Overall, the single is a hit. The video itself is pretty gripping too. It features Trunk literally carrying out the hook of the record by making an example out of fellow rapper Petti Hendrix. There is a brief struggle in the beginning and then Trunk forces Petti to do some digging. Not to mention this all goes down in the snow with Trunk rocking a vest sans coat, hoodie, etc. That alone took some serious heart (lol). The visuals close out with Trunk kicking Petti into the hole that he had him prepare. All in all, it was a very memorable flick.
**My Two Cents: I think the 414 Video Spotlight is a cool new avenue to get artists in the city some additional exposure. And I think the cypher was a good look. I’ve checked out a few of the other artists from the first round as well as the other competitor in the second round, and I have to say Trunk owned it. His lyrics were extremely on point and he went above and beyond to ensure viewers would not soon forget him after seeing “Dig Your Own Ditch.” Not sure when the next cypher is taking place but whoever is participating better bring their A game. A huge congrats to Trunk Bussa on coming out triumphant. And I like to say BESIDE every great man is a great woman. So major kudos to Rockz Solid as well for all of her hard work in helping rally votes/likes. -MinM
