Brockhampton‘s Dom McLennon has been hanging around in the background of his friends’ projects for the past year or so, remaining relatively quiet when it comes to his solo output. Slowly polishing off his considerable talents ever since his promising Thesis mixtape, it would appear that his time out of the limelight has done him some good, coming out even better with his best track to date, “Tempest.”
Surrounding himself with good company, McLennon has upped the ante for himself in terms of ambition. The video for Tempest, which was shot by Tyler Mitchell, features a close family member of McLennon dancing in abstract fashion in New York City. The concept for the video came from a desire to get two people who have never even met before to work on a project together, which McLennon described in detail during our short chat.
There’s more to it than just the intriguing concept, however. It’s a video that allows open interpretation, as well as detailed explaination. But it’s perhaps the track itself that excites us the most, showcasing just how far he’s come in such a short span of time. His future’s looking brighter with each successive release. Watch the video for the Treeecity, Kickraux, and Micetro-produced “Tempest” below, and check out a brief interview with him below that.
How have you been dude?
Life is interesting right now, I’m not gonna lie and say everything is good but I’m looking forward to the future for sure. Just been spending the last couple of months getting my life in order before I start showing the world my new ideas.
How’d you get involved with Brockhampton?
I got involved with Brockhampton through Romil actually. Back when it was Alive Since Forever I had submitted some music to a contest that another Brockhampton artist had submitted to and they kinda discovered me from there. Romil added me as a friend on Facebook and we had a couple conversations – from there we decided to meet in real life and it’s pretty much been history since then. He introduced me to everybody else and we kinda just ran with shit from then on. Before I was even a direct part of the team I remember purchasing cover art from HK for my first official project hahaha; since then that’s just kinda been my creative family. They just get it.
What was the inspiration behind the video for “Tempest”?
The inspiration behind this video really comes from a lot of places. The dancer is a very close family member of mine that I saw him perform for the first time about two months before I moved to Texas. Since then he just kinda became my artistic muse. I want to use him and his work in a lot more projects. When I moved away from Connecticut our connection transitioned from a physical to a more digital one, pretty much the opposite of how I’ve worked with anybody else ever. But what I ended up doing was recruiting Tyler Mitchell, who also shot Kevin Abstract’s “HELL” video, and I told him I had this idea. From there about a week or two after I showed them both the song I told them I wanted to have a meetup in New York City.
Obviously I wasn’t able to be a direct part of that being in Texas, so I just told Tyler the concept of just capturing Arien (the dancer) in his natural element, and in turn it also put Tyler into his own respective creative element, being he’s been in NY for a while now, so he was able to build a solid direction for the entire shoot. From there, I had him send the raw footage back to us in Texas, Frank [Mendez] and I edited it together in less of a traditional music video style and more of a catalog of their creative meeting of the minds. I’d love to experiment more with the concept of taking two creatives who’ve never met before and letting them do their thing… the possibilities are kinda scary
I love the idea of getting two people that have never met and getting them to work together. Collaboration results in innovation, and not knowing someone can obviously lead to unfiltered results. Would you be open to working on music with people you’ve never met now you’ve had this experience?
I would totally be open to that idea; I love the discovery aspect of finding somebody with equal or more talent than me and seeing what we can come up.
There’s a very clear evolution from your early material to where you’re at now. What would you say has really had the biggest impact on you as a constantly improving creative?
I think the things that impact me most as a creative are the things that surround me daily. Being around BH and creating new ideas, discovering new talent and putting the pieces together to make things happen for myself and others, it’s honestly what I live for. I feel like as a creative your legacy is only as impactful as those you can inspire so if I can touch as many creative souls as I can and just let them know they aren’t forgotten in this enormous world full of ideas, maybe I could save some lives in the process.
Where do you see yourself taking your artistic output in the future?
In a perfect world, when I feel like I’ve said everything I wanted to with my music, I want to start a production company. I already have the name and concept, but I’d like to do documentaries all over the world with original ideas as well as music. I just want to inspire people to get up and do things for the rest of my life.
Can we expect to see “Tempest” on a release of some sorts?
Regarding “Tempest,” the visual actually only includes the first half of the original song. I’d like to do something special with the full song so people can get a sense of tangibility with the whole experience. I feel like that is kind of lost in modern music outside of concerts and it’s a feeling we should definitely bring back.
