Times have changed in the world of music videos, where a new breed of directors are on the come up and looking to make a name for themselves. They’re not necessarily enforcing a out with the old, in with the new type of reform, but you definitely see a lot more newer names than you do veteran directors these days.One person adapting to the change is director Nahala Johnson, known to the rap world & many others as famed music video director Mr. Boomtown. He’s worked with a ton of artists over his 17 year career including Gucci Mane, Bun B, Scarface, OJ Da Juiceman, Pimp C, Yo Gotti and Meek Mill just to name a few.
We recently spoke to Johnson about his career and plans for the future of his brand along with his new film on the way. His initial goal was to do movies straight out of college but it wasn’t an easy task, just like making it as a high profile music video director wasn’t easy either. Throughout the thirty-minute interview, the Port Arthur, Texas native talked about his career, some of the personal relationships he’s made along the way and relocating to Atlanta with his company Boomtown Productions & founding Evolve Entertainment,
Johnson also discussed his transition from video director to expanding his brand and directing more feature films and television drama series. Which lead to the topic of his upcoming movie Candy that he describes as a “hood flick”. The film has no current release date yet but he plans on releasing it soon and having premiere screening in his hometown native as well as in his current place of residence. We have the honor of bringing you the first exclusive look at the film through its official trailer.
First, check out our lengthy sit-down with Mr. Boomtown and learn the ways of being a director from the man himself. Also enjoy some rare stories about how his friendship with Pimp C came about, a possible UGK biopic, upcoming work with Gucci Mane, his new film and spin-off series plus much more.
OS: To those who don’t know you, why don’t you state your name and give a brief rundown of some of the artists you’ve worked with.
Boomtown: My real name is Nahala Johnson, but I go by the name of Mr. Boomtown as a music video director. I shot music videos from almost everybody man. From Gucci Mane to Bun B, Pimp C, Scarface, Rick Ross, Meek Mill, Mack 10, Ca$h Out.
OS: The list goes on.
Boomtown: Yeah, the list goes on.
OS: About how many videos would you say you directed?
Boomtown: Over the course of my career. From 2006 up until now. When I first got my videos on BET and MTV. I would say definitely over 700 videos.
OS: How exactly does a director such as yourself stay relevant for that long, especially now – when there’s a new breed of directors trying to make their own name?
Boomtown: That’s the whole purpose now with my new company Evolve Entertainment. We want to move off into other ventures, such as feature films and television drama series. But still pick and choose on the music videos. I feel like I reached my plateau when I comes to the music video world.
Videos have changed through the years. I’m just trying do something a little more challenging now, which would be the feature films and everything.
OS: Can you recall the first major music video that you directed?
Boomtown: My first major video was Pimp C’s “Pourin Up” featuring Bun B and Mike Jones. That was in 2006. It was my first big budget music video.
OS: How exactly did that video come about?
Boomtown: Pimp C and I grew up together. We’re both from Port Arthur, Texas. He’s actually two years younger than me. He was my little brother’s classmate. We actually met way before he was known as Pimp C. We met through one of my classmates who lived across the street from him.
Pimp’s step-dad was the band teacher at our high school, and Pimp was in the band and everything. At this particular time when we met, I was in the eleventh grade and he was in the ninth, and I was doing the rap thing at the time, but really was more focused on football. I was getting all kind of letters from colleges for football, but I was still dibbling and dabbling in the rap game in our hometown and Pimp wanted to meet me. One of my homeboys was like “Yeah man, Mr. Monroe’s son want to meet you.” and I was like “The lil dude with the jheri curl?” and he’s like “Yeah, man.”
I went over to meet him and he had all these drum machines and everything, man keyboards, and I was like “Wow, little young dude got all of this equipment.” We already had been producing music and everything since we were like in the eighth grade and had rap groups and all of that. So he wanted to meet us and we connected just like that. We actually made a song that day at his crib. From then on we hung out and went to his real father’s crib and always listened to old school records. That’s where he got his inspiration from a lot of the samples that he produced back in the day on some of the UGK records.
So that’s how we met and we was always cool. Like I went to the “Big Pimpin” shoot with JAY Z & UGK, went there with Pimp and got to see Hype [Williams] do his thing. I think the budget was like $1.4M. We’ve always been cool and when he had got out of jail, he gave me my shot. I use to write him when he was in jail. I was kind of just frustrated at where my career was at the time because I was approaching commissioners at certain labels that just wouldn’t give me a shot. So when Pimp got out, he gave me my shot.
I went from shooting videos between $5-10k to my first big budget being $100k for that “Pourin’ Up” video.
OS: That was the only video you were able to direct for Pimp C?
Boomtown: Yeah, that was the only one. From there, I did like three videos for Bun B because by that time he [Pimp C] had passed.
OS: What videos in your extensive catalog would you say are some of your more recognized pieces of work?
Boomtown: I would say Bun B’s “You’re Everything” featuring Rick Ross, David Banner and 8Ball & MJG. It’s a real creative video. I would say my second would be Meek Mill’s “Tupac Back” with Rick Ross. Those two definitely stand out, but I would say Bun B’s video would be number one. By far I feel that’s the best video I’ve done.
OS: Would you also consider “You’re Everything” as the one you are most proud of?
Boomtown: Most definitely. Because there’s a lot of meaning to that whole concept and just the song. We was actually just looking at the video the other day, just talking about it. It was like, that song had a lot of meaning to it. I almost lost that video with the first treatment we sent in, because the label’s commissioner was like “Man, you got to go a little harder than this, ’cause we got some directors out of Atlanta that just sent in a treatment, and it’s blowing you out the water Boom. We really want to give you this video, so you gonna have to come on with it.”
After that I was like “okay, we gonna go left field with it.” We basically just came up with a really creative video. Where we created these memory rooms, four rooms, that was plastered with newspaper clippings and everything. But all these clippings and pictures represented that part of the country those guys are from. Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, and Port Arthur in Houston. That’s pretty much how we created the video. With these images came to life within the pictures and the actual newspaper clippings and everything. It’s a crazy video.
OS: That’s actually one of my favorite videos that you directed. I remember that premiering on BET at the time, and just being blown away at how creative it was.
Boomtown: I mean, some other people might like Gucci “Lemonade.” That was a big video. I can say it was big, but when I have to say what’s my favorite, that would be. But it’s plenty videos I shot with Gucci Mane that was like – that I consider as shit. I will say this. I shot so many videos with Gucci Mane that we should be in The Guinness Book of Records. I know we were at like 38 videos when I stopped counting.
OS: Out of all the artists you’ve worked throughout the course of your career, you probably worked with Gucci Mane the most, right?
Boomtown: Yeah, I worked with Gucci the most.
OS: Have you guys talking about working again since he’s been out?
Boomtown: The crazy thing is we just talked for the first time yesterday. He actually called me yesterday. I’m going to go meet up with him tomorrow so he can screen his movie “The Spot” because we haven’t seen it since we shot it. We actually shot it before he went to jail and we had to shoot extra scenes to get it completed while he was in jail. This will be the first time we actually get to see it, tomorrow.
OS: So do you guys plan on shooting any new videos for the music he’s putting out?
Boomtown: Yeah. Well, not for his new album. He mentioned that he had already shot a bunch of videos coming out the gate, when he first got out. What we talked about was getting together next month and do like what we used to do and call it “The Marathon,” and he wants to shoot six videos. So everybody will get to see that after they see these other videos. We gonna act a fool with it.
OS: I still consider you as one of the go-to directors of a lot of southern rappers. Do you think that’s because you’re based down south yourself or that’s just how it all plays out for you.
Boomtown: I don’t even want to say “go-to.” I feel like there’s so many new, hot, young directors out right now that are doing a lot of these newer guys’ videos. I was that go-to guy 2-5 years ago, for a long period of time. That’s what I’m saying about evolving. My whole plan was kind of like push away from the music videos and shoot these films. I really want to sign other directors and give them a chance to see what I seen and feel the love that I felt. I’ve been nominated for three BET Awards (2 BET Hip-Hop Awards, 1 BET Awards), 3 years in a row; 2009 to 2011. That was like the high point of my career. We were working so much, it was ridiculous.
After we shot our movie “Candy” in 2014, we kinda like just slowed down, you know, with the videos and just tried to focus more on these feature films and television.
OS: Was that something you always wanted to get into once you established yourself as a music video director?
Boomtown: The ultimate goal was to shoot movies; coming out of college that was my ultimate goal. To be a director of feature films. It just wasn’t that easy, just like it wasn’t easy to get that elite of directors at that time either. So you know it’s hard just to get $100k music video. At this particular time, I would say like ’95-96, is when music video rates were $250k and up. But it was an elite list that you would actually see on videos. Throughout BET and MTV, you would see the same names. Like nowadays, you see so many different director names, but during that time you’d only see like 10 names. Hype Williams, Benny Boom, Chris Robinson, F. Gary Gray, Erik White, Gil Green. You know what I’m saying? It was like a slew of directors, but it wasn’t over 15 guys, and they were shooting everybody’s videos.
It’s different now, and that’s because of technology, the economy and everything. It’s like labels aren’t spending that type of money anymore on the music videos. We got these cameras that’s out now that are so cheap. At that time we were shooting on 35mm, so the budgets were different. You had to have money to shoot on that. Just to get film stock at that particular time would run you between $5-10k. And that’s just the film stock to shoot on 35mm back then.
OS: What was the transition like from directing music videos for all those years to actually doing a full length film – was it easy?
Boomtown: It wasn’t a big transition. The way we shot our music videos, we tried to make them like mini-movies. Like we would actually shoot music videos that had dialogue scenes in them and everything. A lot of our videos would be narratives. If that’s something that you really, really wanted to do and already knew how to do it, it just actually took time to get to that point. We knew we were going to get to that point, it was just when can we actually get the budget to shoot. I just kept honing my skills as a director till I got that shot.
OS: Was there much of a difference from your music video sets versus how things were conducted on the movie set?
Boomtown: Nah, it wasn’t too different. I mean, now if you talking ’bout a $2-3M movie versus a video that cost $20-30k. There’s a big difference when you walk on that set and just see all of this equipment. It wasn’t a big transition, just shooting my movie “Candy.” That movie is a hood flick, it’s a gangsta film
OS: Speaking of your movie “Candy.” Can you tell us a little bit about it, like the story-line of the film.
Boomtown: It’s mainly about a female drug lord, that’s being watched by this crooked cop. He wants her operation off the streets ’cause he wants to control her side of the city. So he tries to figure who’s the weakest link in her clique, it’s four of them, and her younger cousin, by the name of Dodie. They feel like since she’s the youngest that she could possibly be the weakest, so let’s put this young, fly cat in her life and get her to trust and fall in love with her and then get her hooked on drugs. That was the plan. But it’s a big twist at the end though.
OS: Can we expect to see any rappers making surprise cameos in the movie?
Boomtown: Yeah. Bun B’s in it. Alley Boy’s in it. Scarface is in it, and the lead actress is Sheneka Adams.
Candy is the dramatic tale of a female drug lord and her girls battling to maintain power in a big city. With respect from the streets and a crooked cop wanting them dead or alive, the only means of survival in the game is drugs, murder and dirty money.
“Candy” stars Sheneka Adams, Gina Caliste, Jessica Kyle, Eteria, Ashford, Kindrick Smith, AJ Johnson, Bun B, Scarface, Alley Boy and Sun Williams.
Produced by Jaime Clark
Executive Producer Stephen Jackson, Gina Caliste and Rodney Caliste
Written & Directed by Nahala Johnson aka Mr. Boomtown
OS: Now that you’re focused on movies and TV shows, you don’t really have any more plans on shooting too many more music videos?
Boomtown: Not really, but I definitely want to be able to pick and choose the music videos and not just rely on them.
OS: Is there anyone that you would still like to work with?
Boomtown: There’s plenty other artists I would like to work with. Gucci is the next. The chemistry me and him have is unmatched. So I’ll always work with Gucci until we can’t work at all. There’s plenty of other artists out there, like new artists that I never met or worked with. Some of these newer cats I would love to work with. I got a chance to work with the Migos a while back on a Kirko Bangz video. I would love to possibly do videos with them. Thugga (Young Thug), just a bunch of these new cats that’s making noise. Even R&B, Pop, whatever, I’ve never like shied away from a challenge. The main thing is just, I don’t want to do the same old thing. I want to be a little more creative and do a little more innovative type of work.
OS: I noticed that you don’t work with just the big name artists, you’ve actually done a lot of videos for artists on the come up. How do those usually come about?
Boomtown: I mean, the independent rappers was the beginning, period. That’s how I started off, so I never stopped. Most of these directors would get signed by these big production companies back in the day and they would only shoot these “big” videos or whatever, but the way we did it, we never signed with anybody. We always stayed independent, so we worked with whomever.
So the major labels would come and we might shoot a video for $150k and come right back and shoot one independently for $10k the next week. We never shied away from the independent cats because those were the cats that are next, period. That’s where I come from. I didn’t start off shooting video for big artists, so I’m never going to shy away from the indie cats at all.
OS: Back to your movie “Candy.” Will it be a straight to DVD release or are you trying to push for it to be in select theaters?
Boomtown: I’m just pushing for the best deal right now. We got some distributors that’s screening it. I’ve had a couple of offers but I just haven’t jumped at it yet. So, I’m just waiting to see who’s going to give us a real good offer and hopefully we get some type of deal where we shoot other movies for them also.
OS: So at the moment, there’s no release date set for Candy?
Boomtown: No, we don’t. We’re just dropping this trailer to put the word out there and create a buzz. But everybody’s been waiting on it. We shot it a while back, it just took me a while. I nursed this movie together because I wanted it to be perfect instead of just like dropping it when everybody is like “When it “Candy” coming out?” I wanted it to be perfect to where when people saw it, they be like in awe.
OS: Yeah, especially with it being your first actual film.
Boomtown: Exactly. That’s my baby. I actually wrote the script in 2004 and I always said I wasn’t going to shoot it unless I actually had a budget. Finally the budget came along and we got it done, but at the same time there were things I felt like we still needed to add to it. We had some pickup days and everything and it’s just certain editing elements that I wanted to add to it that I didn’t do when I first started editing. It’s almost like Dr. Dre with “Detox.” It took a while for it to come together, but it’s coming out. I just wanted it to be perfect. I’m a perfectionist. And I wouldn’t release anything if I’m not happy with it, I don’t care. That’s just what it is.
OS: I remember reading a few years ago that you wanted to do a documentary about UGK, Pimp C and Bun B. Do you still have interest in doing that?
Boomtown: Shit, I’m look to possibly shoot a movie.
OS: Oh, wow. So a biopic, like Notorious and the upcoming 2pac film?
Boomtown: Yeah. Bun and I have talked about it, so we’re just waiting for the right time for he and I to get together and just sit down and talk. We never got a chance to just sit down at the table and talk. He came to me about it on set and I was just like “Wow, let’s do it. I been wanted to do it anyway.” After that we pretty much just had phone conversations, never really found the time to sit down and hash it out because he’s gonna actually write the screenplay.
OS: As far as Candy goes, being the director wasn’t your only role in the creation process?
Boomtown: Yeah, I actually wrote that. Well, I wrote, directed, edited and produced it.
OS: You also kept pretty much the same team that you’ve been rocking with since music videos and now movies as well?
Boomtown: Yessir. The same team. My longtime producer, my right hand man. His name is Jaime Clark. Everybody knows when you say Boomtown, they know it’s Mr. Boomtown and Jamie. When they see Jamie, they’ll call him Boomtown, because they know we are Boomtown.
OS: Is there any artist that’s out right now, mainly the new breed of them, would you want to work with them if the opportunity presents itself?
Boomtown: Oh yeah, most definitely. I would definitely like to work with one of these new artist, man. There’s a lot of new up and coming guys that’s doing their thing, and I’m impressed with them after seeing their videos on BET Jams. So, yeah I would love to work with them.
OS: Anyone in particular?
Boomtown: Um.. I’d rather them see the article and have them all come ask. Instead of singling one out.
OS: What’s next after this?
Boomtown: I have something in the works called “Bring Out The Lady.” It’s a television pilot we just shot about a month ago. It’s sort of a spin-off of “Candy.” We shot it here in Atlanta. We got Draya Michele in it and Rob Riley from “Hit The Floor.” They play the lead starring roles. I’m probably about to start editing sometime this week and hopefully once I get it done, we’ll start talking to some some networks to see if we could get it picked up. It’s a dope concept and is executive produced by my son’s mom, Gina Caliste and her husband Rodney Caliste.
It’s a dramatic piece about these females in the underworld, but I don’t want to speak too much of it until we actually start promoting it. I actually just cut the trailer, which is dope, and we can get that picked up too and get this series going. It’s a crazy concept.
OS: Is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap this up?
Boomtown: I hope everybody enjoys “Candy” when it drops. We’re going to do a premiere in Houston and a premiere here in Atlanta. I also wanted to mention that I moved my company, Boomtown Productions, to Atlanta and formed Evolve Entertainment here specifically to shoot feature films and television series. Boomtown Productions will be under the Evolve umbrella. Boomtown will handle the videos and Evolve will handle the movies and everything.
