2Chainz and Decatur Dan start a ‘Riot’ on MTV News

• http://clatl.com/atlanta/ImageArchives?by=1223504
• Decatur Dan directs 2 Chainz in his major label coming-out video.

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It must be odd to have the media constantly looking over your shoulder while you work. But I imagine Decatur Dan is used to it. Since allowing me and CL photog. Dustin Chambers to tag along while he shot the video for Future’s “Magic” ft. T.I. at Magic City for last month’s CL cover story, his work has been documented yet again. This time on MTV News, which brought its own camera crew to the warehouse set of fellow Atlantan 2 Chainz’s “Riot” shoot last week. Already huge in clubs and on radio since it was previously released on his T.R.U. REALigion mixtape, the song will also serve as the first single for 2 Chainz’s Def Jam debut, Based on a T.R.U. Story, due to drop Aug. 14, 2012.

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Mainstream rap video sets can be strange in general. There’s usually a certain protocol the production crew follows based on the shoot schedule, but then there’s also a social hierarchy that mostly goes unspoken. Video models tend to take priority, then major label artists making guest appearances, along with DJs in support of the artist, and finally the starring artist’s own entourage. It’s kind of the flip of real life, if you think about it. Everybody else is behind-the-scenes, whether big-name or no-name, invited or uninvited. When I bumped into a longtime hip-hop publicist on the set of “Magic” back in January, she leaned over at one point in the shoot and told me, “I just realized I don’t like video shoots.” It was understandable being that we were at a strip club. Though there were no strippers on stage there were two nude chicks painted in head-to-toe dayglo gyrating next to Future while he rapped for the camera. But it actually wasn’t the awkwardness of watching wanton sexuality and vice simulated take-after-take that weirded her out, it was the spectators. “The egos are even more loaded here than they are in the club,” she said.