A few weeks ago I took over the Alife store on the Lower East Side, NYC to shoot the video for “24k Rap” off the late J Dilla’s album, “Jay Stay Paid” which features Havoc from Mobb Deep and Raekwon. The original concept for the video was just going to be all performance, but at 3am the day of the shoot I put together the idea that Havoc was going to tie up the store manager in the basement then run the shop himself, keeping the “cash only” sales for that day (for the record: in no way am I encouraging this, but if you do give it a try let me know)… So when I first mentioned the idea to the Alife crew they seemed a little uneasy about the whole thing, I later found out that a similar incident happened to them a few years back, oops! It was all good though, and actually the real store manager stepped up to the plate and filled the role of the tied up employee. I had a great time working with Havoc and Raekwon, and even though they came on the scene when I was about 4 years old, I understand their contribution to todays hip hop, and have a lot of respect for the both of them. Shoutout to Dennis & Devin at Nature Sounds, Jesse and Chris at Alife for shutting down shop for the day, Aves and Dan for coming through to take pics, and Rik for sending this one my way. – Derek Pike (Director)

Shout out to Rik Cordero.