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Music

Korean Rapper Yumdda Raises The Bar On Face Projections

The hip-hop artist’s latest music video uses his face as a canvas for projection.

Known for being MTV Korea’s funky and outspoken VJ, rapper Yumdda returns to the studio after a five-year hiatus to lay down some much-anticipated new music. As a follow up to his 2006 single “Where Is My Radio,” he’s back with “위로 오른다” (Korean for “Raise It Up”) and “I’m Back.” What we like about Yumdda is that he pairs clever lyricism with banger production… and a whole lotta attitude.

The music video above for “Raise It Up” demonstrates a visual experiment that leaves an uncanny and rather in-your-face impression. The video, shot in a single take with an added layer of projection, draws you in so much so that you may have to watch a couple times to catch all his facial expressions. Watching multiple layers of Yumdda rap simultaneously makes it seem like we’re watching all his multiple personalities unravel, which is pretty cool—and his swagger kind of reminds us of Lil Wayne.

We’re happy to see musicians adapt new techniques being developed in the creative tech community. This video seems to draw inspiration from Arturo Castro and the rest of the openFrameworks community’s real-time face substitution experiments, as well as Zach Lieberman’s face projection video for BELL.