Post date: Jan 11, 2014 1:14:46 AM
Two Washington DC rappers fly to North Korea to film a music video that has now gone viral.
PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA AND KOREAN DEMILITARIZED ZONE (FOREST HILLS TENLEYTOWN MUSIC GROUP) - Two Washington DC rappers flew to North Korea to film their music video titled "Escape to North Korea", which has now gone viral.
Anthony Bobb known as "Pacman" and Dontray Ennis known as "Peso" traveled to North Korea for five days with their DC-based production company Forest Hills Tenleytown Music Group.The video, which was posted on YouTube on Tuesday (January 7), has more than 100,000 hits. The rappers said their video was intended to compare North Korea and their hometowns - Washington, D.C., and Landover, M.D. - which they say feel more dangerous than North Korea.
"Their street will pop up and you'll see a lot of people just riding bikes, but my street is really a straight hell zone like you might get robbed if you go over there or something like that, but if you look at their streets everybody's just riding on bikes and motor scooters like you see that in the video," said Peso.
Peso said the only time he was concerned was on take off.
"The only thing I was actually worried about was the plane, "Peso said. "But once the plane took off it was like there was nothing I could do about it."
The co-founder of the production company, Ramsey Aburdene, had a friend who was going on a personal trip to North Korea and Ramsey decided that Pacman and Peso should join.
They raised $10,400 on Kickstarter fundraising website to cover the flights, visas and other expenses for the two rappers as well as production costs.
Aburdene and co-founder of the production company Esteban Glower joined the rappers on the trip that also included Beijing, Hong Kong, Macau and Mongolia.
The rappers said they did not encounter any problems while on a guided tour ofPyongyang and were surprised to see how positive the people were.
"People were happy," Pacman said. "We took pictures with them and all that, so don't automatically believe what you hear. You got to see for yourself."
At the end of the video, Peso says, "I do this shit for Barack," which has become a popular tweet on Twitter. Peso said it was a joke and he was not aware the cameras were rolling.
"I was actually saying that because I had my suit on and I was just looking at the mirror of the elevator at the time. I did not even know they were even recording," Peso said. "I was basically trying to be funny."
The rappers said they are the first to film a music video in North Korea. They started working with Forest Hill Tenleytown Music Group in July after Ramsey met Pacman on the basketball courts in Washington D.C.