Back in March of this year, Def Jam Records released the music video for Big Sean's "Blessings" featuring Drake and Kanye West. Since then, the dramatic black-and-white video directed by Darren Craig of The Uprising Creative has accumulated approximately 500,000 views per day, recently surpassing the 100 million mark.
While this phenomenal music video project is also earning critical acclaim, that's just the tip of the iceberg for Big Sean himself. The rising artist is sure to be in the spotlight at this year's BET Hip Hop Awards, which will be taped tonight in Atlanta for broadcast on Oct. 13. Big Sean is nominated for scores of top honors, including MVP of the Year, Lyricist of the Year, Track of the Year, Album of the Year, Impact Track, People's Champ of the Year, Best Collaboration of the Year and more. Notably, "Blessings" is up for both Track of the Year and Best Hip Hop Video.
"'Blessings' was my first project working directly with Big Sean, Kanye and Drake, and obviously, the song is monumental," Darren explained. "With that in mind, we set out to create something dark and beautiful, and I think we achieved that."
Right now, Uprising has its hands in many different facets of entertainment and branded content, from live events to online development as well as live-action and virtual reality content development. So far this year, Darren has been working as creative director for Miguel and Bonnie McKee, and has directed music videos for CL, Miguel, Tamar Braxton, Bonnie McKee, Nicky Jam and Enrique Iglesias (the record-breaking "El Perdon" for the YouTube Music Awards, co-directed by Uprising's Jonathan Craven), and Rihanna (MTV VMA-nominated "American Oxygen," co-directed by Craven and Uprising's Jeff Nicholas), as well as Big Sean.
Production for "Blessings" took place on Feb. 16 at 1 Big Stage in Glendale, California. The director of photography was Joseph Labisi, Vinnie Hobbs of Vh POST handled editing, and VFX artistry is courtesy of GloriaFX and Ryan Paterson.
"We are extremely grateful to Big Sean, Drake, Kanye, everyone at Def Jam Records and all the other all-stars who have collaborated with us this year," Darren added. "We hope we all have even more to celebrate starting soon."
The BET Hip Hop Awards will debut at 8 p.m. ET on Oct. 13. To learn more, visit http://bet.com.
About The Uprising Creative
The Uprising Creative is an award-winning integrated creative + production company, focused on quality and experience, with a few offices around the world. We're a group of passionate thinkers, makers and doers who are constantly discovering new ways to tell stories and come up with awe-inspiring ideas. We concept, we design, we build, we direct, we produce, we collaborate, we create for brands, agencies + artists, and we're out of our minds. We can do anything. Create and Destroy. http://theuprisingcreative.com
