Last year, M.I made it a note to remind everyone who would listen that he is the best living Nigerian rapper. While fans waited on his talked-up fourth studio album, the rapper spent the most part of 2017 in the media defending his work and basking in past glory. One of such self-wanks was released as a single,  “Your Father”,  featuring Dice Ailes.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd-feDmH4QO/?hl=en&taken-by=mi_abaga

M.I has now released the official music video for the battle-charged track and it seems like he has been reading one of my favourite books; “How To Steal Like An Artist”. The video directed by The Myth draws heavy influences from Lil Wayne and Big Sean’s “My Homie Still” and Kendrick Lamar’s video for “Humble”. Combining the creative direction of the two videos directed by Dave Meyers Parris, “Your Father” still manages to comes off as artsy though somewhat inauthentic.

There’s a lot of direct copying from MI replacing Big Sean at the moving-chair, to mannequins seen now dressed in native attires while M.I and Dice Ailes rap in front of a house. The spherical 360 degree edits are also lifted from Parris’ works. The bicycle riding is particularly notable coming off Kendrick’s “Humble” video released last year.

But somewhere hidden behind the heavy visual sampling, are some more creative art referencing with museum portrait paintings reimagined as MI, Jesse Jagz and Ice Prince. It’s nice that while M.I raps about being the ‘father’ of Hip-hop in Nigeria, he has no qualms shamelessly showing off his inspirations and just how much he relies on others for creative direction.

You can watch the video for “Your Father” below.

Featured Image Credits: YouTube/MI Abaga

You are meeting Debola at a strange time in his life. He wandered into a dream and lost his way back. Tweet at him @debola_abimbolu

ICYMI: Listen to MI and Dice Ailes vent off some steam on their “Your Father” single