Armand Hammer & Alchemist: Sir Benni Miles
with Director Joseph Mault
“Sir Benni Miles” director Joseph Mault is not a peripheral figure in the artistic world of Armand Hammer and its members, Billy Woods and Elucid. Mault is essential to their visual presence having crafted artistically ambitious pieces for the duo and each solo artist. Mault is admittedly a fan of both artists; he originally connected with Billy Woods after connecting to his lyrics and realizing that they were reading the same thing.1 Because Mault actively digests the lyrics of Woods and Elucid, two of hip-hop’s most careful reads, he creates some of the most cohesive videos in music. “Sir Benni Miles” is a masterclass in harmony; the haunting, unyielding Alchemist production transformed by Mault into a mini-horror film in music video form.2
(on shooting in The Cloisters)3
Yeah, yeah. They did a song like maybe on Race Music called “Cloisters,” that's so fucking good. We were looking for a weird palace or something. I was like telling [Billy Woods] that I was looking for that and then that was his idea to head up to The Cloisters. There is a cool set of imagery from that shot. There was a lot of really cool, cool stuff we found up there.
(On the deer head, shown at 0:12, shot in a Cape Cod pond)
A deer head yeah. The coyote got really, really healthy over the past couple of years.4 Somebody told me there was a severed deer head down at the pond we were always swimming at. It was like November, maybe. So we had the photographer… She has some really funny photos of me in this crazy punk jacket. That dude, Death Traitors has these jackets they all say like “hell” and “extreme violence” and all this crazy shit on them. And like I'm in my winter jacket with my camera and my swim trunks in November just like freezing my ass off, waist-deep at Sunset. It was like right as it was getting too dark, I found it and then like was able to shoot through the water at it off.
(on the rock wall shot at 0:34, highlighting the unexpected cliffs on Northern Manhattan)
No, that's just the elevation because I don’t have a drone.
(on crafting the feel of Sir Benni Miles)
I'd have to like I'd have to like, bring up the lyrics again to remember all this stuff, but, it felt to me, like there was a lot of like, scary stuff coming out of the water in that song. I think Woods does a direct, “you’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
So there's a kind of ominous, inexorable sort of march. the vibe was like a classy horror movie to me. Some of the found footage was old whaling videos .I modified the text in one of them, so it says “a ten-ton blanket.” Because that's the heaviest sentence I've ever read. Like, that's just a scary thing to say.
(on the incredibly dope service elevator shot at 1:19 and more)
Totally. We were under the BQE and it didn’t work. The light was weird. We were cold as shit. As we were walking back to Woods’ place, we walked past this elevator and Woods was like “Do you mind if we shoot in there? We’re shooting a rap video” The guy was like “Cool man!” And it ended up being absolutely dope.
(on the shot seen at 3:00)
The chimney! I can't remember if it's still in use but it's a big outdoor chimney. It feels like a Public Works Project thing. It's in the state park. So I think it’s for burning brush and whatnot. But I was walking over there one day and I looked up and thought that was spooky.
(on the shellfish in shower shot at 2:08)5
Yeah, I went and found a bunch of crabs down the road, crab shells. And then did it. Yep. Yep. Those were just bleached crab shells.
(on the eerie stairwell fire at 2:40)
I got to like I have to let go back into the edit again to look at it. It’s a little note, written on a receipt but it like comes from one of the whaling videos I think. I can't remember how I put that in there, but it's caught in a spiderweb. So when you finally see that shot, it's half burned away. You're not meant to read it.. Again, that kind of like creeping doom feeling like you're really caught in a spiderweb, which is fishing line. I made that out of fishing line.
There was a spider web there and I was trying to shoot it and I was like I don't know how the fuck you shoot this thing. It was too fine.
This video was primarily shot in Manhattan’s The Cloisters. I ran frequently in Inwood Hill Park, just a short distance north of the Cloisters, on the same geological shelf. One day, I saw something that stood out. It was too shiny to be in a forest. I jogged over and nudged it with my foot. It was a severed pig’s head. This video, comes from the album Haram. Peep the cover.
This will connect to another story Joseph tells us about another video, Pollo Rico. Also, I am realizing this article has mentioned three separate severed animals heads so apologies to my sister Jacquie, a true animal lover.
Check that alliteration, literary agents!