Cole Bennett remembers working with Juice WRLD before he became famous
It’s no secret that Cole Bennett and Juice WRLD were close friends. The late rapper and the creator of Lyrical Lemonade collaborated on several projects. Many of Juice’s music videos, including “Robbery,” “Bad Boy,” “Lucid Dreams,” “All Girls Are The Same,” and others, were directed by Bennett. During a recent interview with the Full Send podcast, the 26-year-old videographer recalls hearing about Juice before he blew up, “He had like 2000 followers across the socials,” he says.
After directing the music videos for “All Girls Are The Same” and “Lucid Dreams,” both Bennett and Juice WRLD rose to the top of the modern hip hop landscape, those were the first two projects on which the duo collaborated.
“Bibby called me and he is like, ‘I have this artist I want you to manage,” remembered Cole. “I said, ‘Manage? I do not manage artists,’ […] and he sent me Juice’s music. This was before anyone who knew who Juice was and the first songs he sent me were ‘All Girls Are the Same’ and ‘Lucid Dreams.’ […] I remember exactly where I was, I was in New York, I was at my hotel room and I was like, ‘This is incredible’ and I just called him back, ‘You know, I’m not really interested in managing anyone, but I would love to do his first music video.”
Cole also remembered the first encounter he had with Juice,
“When I got back to Chicago he came over, cause he’s from Chicago too and we just hang out, we took some Shrooms, we listened to some music and then the rest is history.”
Cole Bennett explains what it was like to direct Eminem, Dr. Dre, and Mike Tyson all at once.
Bennett directed one of Eminem’s most well-known music videos, “Godzilla” featuring Juice WRLD, in 2020. There is a part in the video where Eminem, Dr. Dre, and Mike Tyson, appear together. Cole describes what it was like to work on set with them.
“When I got to set that day, it was just the most unreal feeling. Eminem got the first on set. He was there for 14 hours, two days in a row. Second day, at the beginning of the day, I got the word that Dr. Dre was gonna be there if I wanted to put him in the video, so I had to find a way to get Dr. Dre in there. We already had the scene of Eminem being knocked out by Mike Tyson and then going to the hospital, so I was like, ‘Dr. Dre as the doctor,’ it worked out perfectly.”
Lyrical Lemonade founder also highlighted how it felt to be surrounded by all three superstars, noting that he is never nervous while directing a video, but rather excited and inspired.
“Being in that room, giving direction to Eminem, Dr. Dre and Mike Tyson was such a surreal feeling,” he added.
Cole Bennett on Rejecting Kanye West’s Video Changes
Bennett also shared a previously unknown story about working with Kanye West on YNW Melly’s music video “Mixed Personalities” in 2019.
“Kanye hits me the night it’s supposed to drop or the night before and he is like, ‘Yo let’s make the video black and white,’… I told him no,” Cole said. “I said, ‘We have to kind of think about Melly here. This is his song at the end of the day, this is his vision. He is also not here to have an input on it. So I really think we should follow the initial vision that we all had.’ and he’s like ‘No, that doesn’t match my color palette’ but he was on set the whole time and this is what he told me the night before the drop. […] I actually really appreciated it because , like I said, that self integrity element of like knowing what he likes and what’s true to his artistry.”
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Check out the full interview below:
