194 Recordings Engineers Video Debut of Graduating Senior

By Richard Pierce

      194 Recordings, the student-run record label for NYU’s Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music in the Tisch School of the Arts, produced its first music video this semester with recent department alumnus Nyle Emerson (’09), a hip hop and spoken word artist. Entitled Let the Beat Build, the video made its debut at NYU’s Earth Day concert in April and has since exploded in popularity on the Internet.
    ;   Since April, Let the Beat Build, a remake of a Lil Wayne track, has been featured on some of the best-known blogs, including Gawker, Okayplayer, Kanye West’s blog, and Nah Right, among others. It has also appeared as the spotlight video on YouTube’s music page, and has received over 500,000 hits since being posted on sites such as YouTube and Vimeo.
    ;   The video and music were recorded live in one shot with a steadycam following the artist around in studio 510 in the Clive Davis Department, and features Emerson alongside fellow bandmates Mitch Friedman, Dan Mensch, and Isaac “Funknasty” Teel, as well as many NYU students from different departments within Tisch as well as musicians from the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
    ;   According to Emerson, it took 10 hours, six rehearsals, and 31 takes to finish the video, which appeared on 800 blogs within three hours of its posting. Gawker said the song offers “refreshingly optimistic lyrics about creative ambition in the new depression.”
    ;   194 Recordings received a ProFunds Grant from the Tisch School to help produce the video in collaboration with Last Pictures.