Wonderland.

OLLY JENNINGS EXPLORES HIP HOP CULTURE IN THE US

We premiere the trailer for Olly Jennings’ new road-trip video, courtesy of Converse’s Made By You initiative.

Converse have been celebrating London’s creatives through their Made By You campaign for a while now and it’s most recent incarnation is collaborating with Olly Jennings a member of the Young and Laced crew that offers new talent a platform to showcase their work. Like Converse, we love fresh artists at Wonderland, so we’re super excited to exclusively share the latest of the video series today: it’s a short film called ‘Mystery Lights’ by British videographer Olly Jennings (whose previous work for the Chelsea Flower Show explored the collisions between nature and technology) that follows his road trip around the US and, in the process, explores America, Americana, and the significance of Hip Hop culture.

Olly said that he was keen to investigate “the work of the musicians, producers and artists behind some of the music scenes I love in America’s cities and contrast these features with the surreal cinematic and strangely impartial landscapes which connect these worlds of activity like dreamlike corridors. I wanted to display the madness of the world of gangster rap in New Orleans with the silence of the Louisiana swamps and the futuristic sound of Chicago Footwork with the stillness of the New Mexico desert and make an installation which allows the viewer to travel through these contrasting worlds of natural soundscapes and landscapes into the cities where the often wildly contrasting genres of music are explored.”

Mystery Lights Trailer from Oliver Jennings on Vimeo.

The video features a variety of up-and-coming artists, from rapper Nesby Philips – check his video below because the string heavy-beat on ‘Dusty Roads’ and the disgracefully opulent, vintage Rolls Royce in the video make it a must watch – to Mirror Travel, a female Psych band from Texas who are about to release an album with Brian Jonestown Massacre. As Olly mentions, various iconic American landscapes and locations crop up as well, including the contemporary-classic Prada Marfa instillation in Texas. All in all, the trailer alone makes for a hugely revealing, whistle-stop tour that explores more of America and its underground culture than you could have ever imagined seeing in two minutes.