South African hiphop star Nasty C gets a very stylish and envelope-pushing treatment from Kyle Lewis, who maintains a flow of sumptuous visuals over three tracks from the album Bad Hair Extensions.

The arresting image of bones emerging from liquid gold sets the standard for the imagery to follow, combining Restoration-style styling and art direction for Don't Do It, girls lipsyncing to Good Girls in a communal shower, and glitchy, flipped visuals within a luxury lifestyle for Phases. And indispersed throughout are more VFX, included a 3D scans of Nasty C's abstractly piled together.

Excellent work from the director now established as a top name in South African music videos, with his work for the likes of Cassper Nyovest, Riky Rick, and Khuli Chana. It topped the Apple Music video charts in South Africa for the week of its release, and give Nasty a chance to break out as a global artist.

KYLE LEWIS:

"Nasty C approached me to direct a film featuring three of his songs, that would make a statement. It’s an art piece about his own journey of breaking free and becoming a man, with the three sections representing the past, present and future respectively. Visually, the films move further and further away from the initial Renaissance styling, as a visual metaphor for breaking way from the ideals of the past and becoming true to yourself. As surreal as it gets, I tried to keep it as real and visceral as possible, which is what I got from Nasty’s music.“