Premiere: Noga Erez, Reo Cragun And ROUSSO Want You To Know They Don’t Buy “VIEWS”

Israeli artist Noga Erez her long-time friend, collaborator and producer ROUSSOU recently teamed up with L.A-based rapper Reo Cragun and today we’ve got the fruits of the collaboration: their new single “VIEWS” and its Indy Hait-directed video.

Over a tightly-wound, funk-heavy production, Noga and Reo trade verses and hooks as they lament insincerity and fakeness in the music industry and the wider world, for that matter. People buy views / I know it’s old news / but I got bad news / for everybody, says Reo as Noga and a troop of stylishy clad dancers march rhythmically up a never-ending staircase, which of course is not unlike climbing to the never-ending clout ladder.

Speaking with Complex via email, Erez explained the concept behind the video: “‘VIEWS’ is one of those songs that was inspiring and easy to write a visual piece for. The ‘endless staircase’ idea came to me after writing four treatments for the video. That’s when Indy came in and started to strip away all the bullshit, layer by layer. He stripped the idea down to its core and in his unique style and aesthetic, directed a piece that only has significant and memorable moments in it.

“In my verse, I tried to voice that insecurity that can lead to people faking or buying views to portray an appearance of success. I wanted to relate to that feeling, not criticize,” Erez said of the track itself. “We thought it would be more interesting to have a counter perspective to mine so we reached out to Reo and he came back with his magnifying verse about (as I understand it) how this sort of stuff comes back to haunt you in the end.”