Fredo Bang - Monsters

What this video is

Released July 31, 2020 — at the height of the Black Lives Matter uprising following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor — 'Monsters' positions Fredo Bang within a wave of Southern rap artists directly engaging with systemic racism and police violence through narrative music video storytelling. The video's dramatization of a racially motivated arrest, a police shooting of an unarmed Black man, and…

Why it matters

A significant artifact of Southern trap's 2020 social-realist turn, 'Monsters' demonstrates how Baton Rouge street rap — historically focused on hyperlocal street narratives — expanded into broader socio-political commentary during the BLM era. Its narrative structure, unusually complex for a…

The director

Nathan Smith is a music video and commercial director whose work spans hip-hop and R&B visual production. His credit on 'Monsters' is listed alongside DP John Tashiro on the production company's official portfolio page at ryanhberger.com. Further extensive…