Student videographers build dynamic roles in music industry
Sophomores Aayam Bastola and Nahome Haregot started Brick Productions in their freshman dorm rooms. This year, they’ve worked with rapper Trippie Redd, among others. Photo by Jon Mirador.
Andrew Ringle, Spectrum Editor
VCU sophomores Aayam Bastola and Nahome Haregot didn’t have much experience when they started producing music videos in their freshman dorm rooms. They’ve since worked with rap artist Trippie Redd, who has more than 6 million Instagram followers.
But according to Haregot, the pair didn’t have anything to do with the music industry before they created their own brand, Brick Productions.
“We were bums,” Bastola added. “We didn’t do anything. We just played video games and stuff.”
While they had the tools to make a video, they needed an opportunity to work for an artist. That’s when local producer and rapper Sunil Rajan — known professionally as Linus — reached out to them.
“He had a lot of connections with rappers,” Haregot said. “We didn’t have any.”
Rajan connected the pair with Virginia rap artist Samson Ace Miller, and they made plans to produce their first professional music video. They initially asked for just $60 in compensation, but the artist gave them $90 and asked them to do a good job with the footage.
“That was our first video,” Haregot said. “We filmed it, shot it all within a couple of weeks. And then it dropped, and we had as many people as we knew go check it out to see if they liked it or not.”
Their connection to Miller eventually led to more influential appointments, including working for one of Bastola’s favorite rap artists, Black Kray from Goth Money Records.
“Now, I have conversations with him [Black Kray],” Bastola said. “I talk to him, I know him. It’s crazy. To me, he was one of my favorite rappers. I’d lose my shit the first few times I’d meet up with him, but after a while, I can talk to him like a peer.”
Bastola said the project with Black Kray made it easier to work with other celebrity artists, including Trippie Redd, who was featured in a video Brick Productions made for rapper Sunny2Point0. The video, titled “Man Down,” was uploaded to the WorldStar Hip Hop Youtube channel in January. It has since received more than 600,000 views.
“Sunny saw the talent [Bastola] had with editing, and he asked him to come film for his show,” Haregot said. “That’s how a lot of the connections are built. It takes a lot of rejections from these rappers. One in a hundred will reply to you, and then it goes from there.”
Once they published “Man Down,” Trippie Redd invited Bastola to film two stops on his tour. At the show in Norfolk, Bastola connected with artists like Lil Duke and Lil Keed. Before the concert in Washington, D.C., however, Trippie Redd became sick with the flu.
“So I just kicked it with him there and we shot some videos with some other people from 1400,” Bastola said, referencing Trippie Redd’s musical group. “It was a good experience.”
Bastola and Haregot are both marketing majors, and they have nearly every class together. The pair agreed that college is important, but said balancing schoolwork with Brick Productions can sometimes be difficult.
“Right now I’m trying my hardest to balance the two together. But I think it’s very doable,” Haregot said. “When I don’t want to work on school, [music videos] just take me away from it for a bit. Then I’ll have a creative drought and I’ll go work on school.”
Brick Productions may only be sophomores in the rap world, but they said they’ve produced over 25 videos for more than 10 different artists.
“There’s lots of long nights involved with it,” Bastola said. “But we love it. We do it out of love. We’re building this house brick by brick, and we’re always building.”
Brick Productions can be found on Instagram and Twitter at @brickprod.
