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Rapper's 'This is Nigeria' video took us 7 days to shoot, says video director

Geezy, the director behind the visuals of the Falz's controversial 'This is Nigeria' single has opened up on the creative direction of the video.

Also known as Prodigeezy, the director whose real name is Iyobosa Rehoboth has been putting visuals together for a while having with his professional career running three years and working with the likes of Aje Films and Aristokrat

He is also the brain behind Burna boy's Boshe Nlo, which he described as his biggest project prior to last week.

The video that has however brought him his biggest recognition yet is Falz's new offering, This is Nigeria, which borrows life from American rapper, Danny Glover's This is America, and captures happenings in the country.

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With various scenes reflecting recent events in the country, the music video became the number one trending topic and has generated both positive and negative reviews, initiating think pieces, and leaving viewers with a lot of questions.

Geezy discusses his artistic intent on the video for 'This is Nigeria'

In a chat with Pulse, the director discussed how they arrived at the idea behind the video, ''As far as style and technique, the idea came from Childish Gambino's video, however, the original story and concept came from me, I wrote it, Falz had some ideas but I listened to the song and then we developed it and wrote the script''.

On how long the entire process took them, he explained, ''I tell you, from the day that I got the booking to the day that the video was out, it took us exactly a week, because we needed to do it really quickly.

Initially I was out of town, but as soon as I got the brief, I flew back to Lagos and 48hours later, we started the production, we shot the video on Thursday (May 24) last week and the video was out on Friday, May 25''.

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Concerning the negative reactions that have trailed the release of the video, Geezy is not ruffled, ''I think that the fact that people are even noticing those tiny details means they are paying a lot of attention, and for me, it is a good thing, because it is driving the conversation and people are getting to talk about it .

And as far as the execution, I tried not to make it too direct, We tried to be forward thinking and deliver a video beyond the internet, that can make it to terrestrial TV without getting banned.''

While insisting that the short time it took to put together the video did not exactly affect its final output, ''For me, the ideas came out how we want it, we took a lot of time to make the ideas very solid before we went ahead to execute, I think the way we envisioned it in our head was how it came out.

Admittedly there were a few more things we could have done, but more of what was a challenge was the technical execution because of the time frame, but as far as the idea, it was how we want it.''

The video which was shot in a warehouse at Oregun, Mainland area of Lagos State had over 50 people working on the set, but the director insists he is used to working with that large amount of crew members having previously worked films and commercials.

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On being chosen by Falz to direct the video, he admits that they share a running relationship having built a harmony on two previous projects and based on conversations, he understands his story telling abilities, ''Working with Falz is amazing, he is a creative and innovative artiste because he serves as a springboard for ideas and a great guy to go crazy with.''

The director is also very concerned about the current state of drug abuse in relation to Nigerian Universities which he says was the idea behind the scene that had the Unilag bus and codeine kids in the video.

Geezy hopes to shoot more music videos which he is most passionate about and for him, there are yet many stories to be told.

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