Director X also talks about the version of the video you’ll never see.
Between the minimal set design and Drakes candid dancing, Hotline Bling became perfect fodder for memes.A lotof memes.
Hes a good dancer, man, he told EW Wednesday.
Credit: Getty Images
Read on for more on Drakes dancing (and, you know, the rest of the video).
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:What direction did you give Drake?
DIRECTOR X:Nothing.
So I just turn on the camera and let them do what theyre going to do.
Its really setting the stage for them.
People have been debating whether Drake is a good or bad dancer.
How would you describe his dancing?
Hes a good dancer, man.
No, its not Chris Brown or Michael Jackson.
People need to dance again.
Im always good to promote dancing.
Men have stopped dancing.
I go to night clubs and I see girls dancing and men not dancing.
Its a horrible thing.
I still have fun.
Youll see me at a club dancing with a girl that I just met.
Guys really need to understand what all theyre losing by refusing to dance.
So make your choice, boys.
Why do you think that men dancing faded out?
He doesnt care about everyones opinion.
Its all positive things that come from having a good time.
Your music videos feature a lot of male artists dancing.
Is that a statement?
No, its just birds of a feather flock together.
Just serendipitously I end up working with men that are not afraid.
You know that Im saying?
See how that works out for you, because thats really Compton.
Real men dance and have a good time and arent afraid to.
[Laughs] So go on with it.
I thought people were going to like it, be like, Oh, cool set, its fun.
Hes having a good time.
I had no idea it would be such a thing.
Ive done some videos that have gotten good responses, but Ive never seen s like this.
You think this is bigger than your other videos?
In the age of social media, this is crazy.
Was there a moment when you thought, This is a great video?
When they were building the sets, I was like, these are really big sets.
You dont see this stuff everyday.
What was it like watching the final cut for the first time?
It was good to see it all come together.
Back in the day, you used to make these videos.
Back in the day, we used to build these big sets.
They just went away.
The budgets got smaller and it just stopped happening.
So this is great.
How involved was Drake in the early stages?
Normally Drake has an idea of what he wants to do.
What was your other idea?
I wanted to do a dance competition likeSilver Linings Playbook.I basically wanted to do the climax fromSilver Linings Playbook.
[Laughs] The other girl was gonna be some old lover.
This wasnt that bang out of video.
We could do a performance video or we could do this crazy thing.
So it became this crazy thing.
Have you seen the memes?
Do you have favorites?
Thetennis oneandtheStar Trekone, those are my favorites.
It seems like its calmed down today.
Its funny, Instagram has a day of craziness and then it calms down.
Its a strange thing.
Even now, I look at my timeline and Im not really seeing the Drake memes.
But yesterday was nonstop.
Its just a fascinating culture, so even capturing the culture for a day is quite a thing.
