Second Life Gets Its Own Hip Hop Track -- And a Mixed Reality Music Video Produced in Philadelphia, Tokyo, and SL

Far as I know, "Virtual Love", a smooth new track by Philly rapper Legrand, is the first hip hop song inspired by Second Life cut from an established pro. It comes with a very cool mixed reality video that's making the metaverse rounds this week, and there's an interesting story behind how it was made. But first watch, as Legrand leaps from one Internet channel to the next, ultimately winding up as an avatar in SL:

Produced by the class of JJ Aucouturier, a Computer Science professor on the Japan campus of Temple University, it's a great example of using machinima in an educational context, something readers and I were just discussing in a Monday post. Aucouturier, known as JJ Madrigal in Second Life, met Legrand at a music industry convention, and asked the East Coast rapper if he was interested in getting involved in a unique project:

"I was looking for the opportunity to build a class around a collaboration with a real-life artist, so my students could get a hands-on experience with the challenges of today's music industry... [Legrand and I] started on the idea of using the class as a consultancy to help him promote his upcoming tour in Japan." The original idea was to launch Legrand as a regular Second Life performer, but after talking with several marketers, the class broadened their messaging (as you can see in this video): "[W]e switched our focus to using Second-Life to 'brand' Legrand as an international, social media-savvy artist."

Legrand wrote "Virtual World" for the class to develop a video around:

"Legrand first sent this as a 'soundtrack' for the project, which I think he intended as a motivational, tongue-in-cheek piece for us (I guess some of my nicest female students in the class took the virtual girl thing personally, too). But as the project progressed, it became natural to use the track -- we made several versions, changing both lyrics to increase references to SL, and the music." Aucouturier's bilingual students helped Legrand write and pronounce the Japanese lyrics, and the song itself was mastered by Andrew Landry, a student who's worked as a music producer with Simpsons creator Matt Groening. "Andrew made several remixes of the song, to match our storyboard and timeline, and ended up mastering the final track. The fact that Legrand really gave us control meant in the most extreme way, we were in charge."

The final result is this video, which took four months to produce, with 20 students working together, some scripting SL objects, others designing texture maps and avatars, others editing the sound and machinima footage. "One of the most spectacular graphical innovation of the video maybe is that the avatar for Legrand is drawn... with pencil!" That was done with a UV map, drawn by hand. "You don't want to try this at home," Aucouturier says laughing.

Comments

[Ann Otoole]

What? You never heard of Tarsha?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epkPUDHv76E&fmt=37

I have never heard of that rap artist so I guess we are even on the opinion score. Of course the Tarsha vid was not cut in SL but that doesn't bother me.

[FlipperPA Peregrine]

Huh, pretty cool video!

We did a project with Philadelphia hip-hop star Ryan Banks well over a year ago... I wonder if they're buddies? He did two songs inspired by Second Life on his album, "The Blood." You can see the machinima Ariella Languish and I did for him in SL here, it was a blast, but never made it to MTV (or to a true final cut):

http://peregrinesalon.com/RyanBanks/ryanbanks.mov

He also did the soundtrack and has a bit piece in the upcoming movie, "Let the Game Begin":

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1041778/

And he's a nice guy to boot. Regards,

-Flip

[Hamlet Au]

Flip, can you put that video on YouTube and tell me when you have?

[JJ Aucouturier]

Hi all,

Thanks for the shout-out. We're glad everybody liked the video.

Just to clarify - we never intended this track to be the "first" hip hop song about SL. In the making of the project, we actually took inspiration from a few, like Ariella's awesome machinima that's already been cited here. (Ariella actually helped us a lot with this project)

The song was written as part of a collaboration between the artist, Legrand, and students. It's been shaped by the many tools we used for that collaboration, from holding class meetings in SL to video conferences between Tokyo and Philly on Skype and daily communications with Twitter. We hope the video reflects this!

Thanks,
JJ

[Ariella]

Hey Hamlet!

Sorry this is a few days late. Do you still want me to post the Ryan Banks video on Youtube? I have it on Vimeo right now: http://vimeo.com/8679681 I can post it on YouTube for you though.

Thanks!

[celestial elf]

SL just got another, based on the WoW music videos and filmed in SL
its a hip hop life....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnTJkBICL8U
by celestial elf