Name: Nick Brazzoni
Year in school: Sophomore
Major: Journalism
Why he’s campus celebrity: Rapper in music video that was said to be genius by Justin Timberlake’s record label and blogger
Link to music video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqrt95PcKkc
Q: How did you get involved with rapping for this music video?
A: Matt (the main singer in the video) and I had always made songs for fun in the past; he would sing and I would rap. One day he came to me and asked me to do a Blurred Lines cover with him. He just insisted that I write my own verse because he hated the one T.I. did on the song. So, along with our other friend Brandon, we created the song and knew we had to make a music video to accompany it. I’ve always been into video editing and have made plenty of videos with my friends. So, I shot and edited the video and we were more than happy with the final product.
Q: What was the outcome of the music video?
A: Within our own social network, our friends loved it, which we kind of expected. The funniest part was that a lot of people had never heard the song, as when we made the video the song had just been released, so they thought we actually wrote the song ourselves. What we didn’t except was Ken Komisar, the current President of Tennman Records, a record label founded by Justin Timberlake, and a former VP at Sony Music Industries, seeing the video and calling it “genius”. Matt’s mom works in the music business and has had contacts with people from record labels all over the U.S., so it was really cool when he e-mailed her saying how great it was. Unfortunately, he must have had better things to do than help a low-budget music video created by college kids go viral.
Q: Best part about filming the video?
A: The best part about filming the video was definitely the fact that the stuff we were filming was so random. We weren’t really sure what the song was about at the time, so we kind of just shot us at random spots throughout downtown Waukesha. If we saw some kind of setting or background that we found interesting, we would shoot a scene there. For example, next to a river there were statues of bears. We couldn’t resist the temptation to include these bears in our video, which is why you’ll find me simultaneously rapping and petting a black bear in the music video.
Q: Tell me about your blog
A: My blog, Brazzoni Sports Blog, is a blog I created where I write various sports posts that convey my opinions and views on certain topics. I find myself to be a very opinionated person and I’m passionate about my views, so this is my way of getting those views out there. Now, I’m thinking about starting to write pop-culture related posts as well as continuing to do sports, so it appears that a name change is soon going to be necessary. I posted my first pop-culture related story a couple weeks ago about Miley Cyrus, which was a lot of fun to write.
Q: Why did you start your blog?
A: I started it because I love to write, especially about topics I am passionate about. This blog became my way of getting all my strong views on different events in sports out in the open for others to read. Writing is something I want to do for a career, so I didn’t think it would hurt for me to get a head start on that.
Q: Best part of your blog
A: This question would have been harder to respond to had you asked me a few weeks ago, but now I can confidently say that my best post is the one I just wrote on Miley Cyrus entitled, “Miley Cyrus is the World’s Biggest Pop Star, and It’s All Your Fault”. It was right after her AMA performance with the singing space cat in the background that really inspired me to write about her transformation and how everything she has done since leaving her Hannah Montana days has been genius. There is so much to love about her and, for a lot of people, so much to hate about her, but either way people keep talking about her. That’s why she’s blown up to an even bigger pop star than : Nick Brazzoni