Kool Keith: Plastic World

with Director Jason Goldwatch

(on who created the video’s treatment)

That was mine. To be fair, that was something…. each verse was going to be a new set up, the hallways was the chorus, that was pretty interesting. And I had it written where the third verse, which is Michael Jackson in the video, was gonna be Dr. Octagon. So he was going to walk in and do these lock offs rather than split it down the center and have him walk in and he was going to be sitting here with himself as both Sex Style Kool Keith and Dr. Octagon. Actually bro that didn't get deaded. This is actually cool. That didn't get deaded until we couldn't….I had it written so we had moths flying around the room. I think we had 12 grand to shoot this video back in the day, shooting on film, and they were actually sussing out insect specialists to find how we get moths flying around on my fuckin’ set. And they couldn't. So it became a thing, blah blah. Then ended where Keith was like, “Bruh, you know, I live in Hollywood. There’s this Michael Jackson I see every day. I’m gonna ask him.” It was a thing like let’s just go there. So then, we just made him eat cereal on the floor. Wow, weird ass thing. That was mostly me but you know, every artist has to approve whatever you're doing and the more they like it, the better it is. And the more they're into it, which resonates. He actually hooked us up with the Michael Jackson and you know, the third verse was his.

(on the absolute dopeness of the Michael Jackson impersonator)

So ill! But you know, I remember there was a moment where I took off his glove and I give it to Keith. I said to Keith ”bring this like you're returning it to him. you know? And everyone died laughing. It set a great tone for the energy. The end of that where Mike gets up and is dancing with him was just like the funniest fucking moment of all time on set.

(on his connection to Kool Keith)

It was great. Honestly, we were friends but we were mutually sort of interested in each other. He would invite me over. I posted that video on Instagram not long ago and Virgil popped up and was like “bro this is fucking incredible.” Like what the fuck? And I was like dude, bro,  Keith used to invite me down to Hollywood and make me macaroni and cheese and fuckin serve me up ginger ale. And we’d kick it and it was super weird. So it was a thing where I became friends with him and I think to make a music video, a documentary for that matter, or even a portrait, you have to sort of like find the love for that source. You have to fall in love with that energy. I love Keith. He’s the weirdest, magical, most wonderful motherfucker.  But it's through Kutmasta Kurt and that weird world that was happening. That was through Ev[idence] because of Third Degree. That video was great so that led into Kurt introducing me to Kool Keith and then us really getting along. And just being, you know, art shit. I mean, he used to invite me over and be at his crib. He used to make these collages out of porn. So he used to just cut out pussies or cut out nipples into like a whole gigantic page of just like nipple collage with glitter glue. So I would come into his crib row and like he'd be sitting there working and they'd just be pink. Just little snippets, like skin colored snippets all over his carpet, bro.  Like days of just bugging with a scissor making his weird skin collage. Like I was super fascinated by that dude.  Actually a cool story is that he introduced me to his homie. He's actually the guy who brought the girls to set for Plastic World. He was a pimp named Skylar from Hollywood and him and I got along like fuck. Him and I ended up shooting a bunch for a documentary that I thought I would make on him but it got so dark and weird and uncomfortable that I couldn't keep shooting with him. But I would go with him when you pick up girls and go out at night. And shoot sort of the LA filth he was involved in but it was so dark. I was like, I don't feel like I'm supporting some weird….this doesn't feel right. I would have probably done it now. But back then, I thought I was doing good or something and I couldn't.  I didn’t want to support what that was. But his whole crew was super brilliant, interesting, underworld, anti-everything sort of shit. All that sex shit was pretty real from his world and was interesting to see and sort of feel like it was a part of it. We had a show. I was going to college at Cal Arts and there was a television station I was running. So like one night a week, we’d all put on wrestling masks and host a show live on a television station and no one knew who we were. We’d all change our voices. But I would have Skylar the imp from the Kool Keith video come up. And one time he brought some girls and it was a live call-in show. So people called in to ask these call girls some interesting-ass, relatively smart questions. But you know, he’d bring up weed and auction it off. You know, through Keith, I met Skylar and Skylar and I sort of became tight. You meet people and connect with them.

(on making his subjects forget the camera)

To make them feel inclusive that camera needs to become a robot, a fucking Cyclops robot.  Just shouldn't be a thing that the world is gonna see eventually. That's how I work. I try not to think about where this goes. I'm making this for my couple of friends or I’m making this for my wife to love me more. I don’t think about it that way.

(on the video’s distinctive color)

That was back in the day when we shot film bro. That was super 16 millimeter.  That was when for a shot list, you have to fucking go into what you're doing what you need. Today, with fucking videotapes you can just shoot for days. You can shoot everything and always keep shooting. Back then, we had these reels of film that was, I believe, tails and ends or whatever.  We ended up buying leftover film, odds and ends and shit, that productions had sold back, they didn't use. So even when you buy that film back in the day, you sign off on accepting the fact that it might  have a leak or it might not expose.  It’s sort of like this insurance policy sign off on because you're getting it from at cheap because it's been re-canned or like that kind of shit bro.

It was the film. It was that super 16 bro. The thing was I wanted each room to be different. I was really into creating each verse as a different thing. So we shot Fuji in one room and Kodak in another room. When he picked up a camera that's actually Super-8. We just used wacky, as far apart film, exposures and colors.  We knew we're going to be in basically the same room for three verses. So how do we dissect that and make it take them further apart from each other? There's a return back into the hallway, which is again, still film but sort of a grounding, a sense of grounding us, a yarn through the whole tapestry.

(on the video’s location)

No, we got a disgusting super shady Hotel in downtown LA. And actually, there was both a wonderful ass old lady… I got there first. I was like 19  when we made that. I was so fucking hype that I was the first person there. And there was an old lady that  tried to sell me hard boiled eggs in the lobby of the hotel. And then once a cube truck pulled in there was a sound like BOMB, like a big sandbag and hit the roof of the cube truck. And it turned out that someone on the top floor was throwing bags of feces. Super dirty drug hotel. We just took the top floor over for a bit.