Interview with Nam Mac, the Artist Behind Bladee's "Reality Surf" Music Video
There's something about Nam Mac's artistic vision that speaks to me as late millennial 90's kid (basically a boomer nowadays!), and after interviewing him, I can pretty much pinpoint it exactly.
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Posting his art as @lordstingray on Instagram, the digital creator couples old-school 3D gaming inspired graphics with chic music, and adds a further psychedelic twist to his work that coats Nintendo nostalgia in an original veneer. His most recent "big break" was creating the music video for Swedish rapper Bladee's song "Reality Surf," and it's hauntingly beautiful.
After discovering the und-coming artist through the aforementioned music video and then diving into the rest of his work, I eventually reached out to him for an interview by email, and he graciously agreed.
Our correspondence is below.
NEEMblog: How did you get into art, and then more specifically, the style of 3D graphics and animation that are common throughout your work?
Nam Mac: At home I didn’t have many toys growing up so I’d draw these giant stick figure battle scenes and eventually they got more and more complex. The more I drew, the more I enjoyed it and it eventually lead me to where I’m at today!
NB: It seems retro video games are a big inspiration for you, what are your favorites? Any that are your favorites just from an artistic perspective?
NM: Man I played so many games growing up. It all really started with pajama sam and freddy fish. Then my mom bought me a nintendo 64 and that changed everything. I’d play smash 64 and super mario for hours every day with my sister. I also loved playing games on addictinggames and newgrounds in the early days of the internet.
NB: What other influences do you have?
NM: My biggest influences have got to be early content creators on the internet. My favorite animators growing up were random people who made stick figure fighting videos and whatnot. I also really enjoyed the bunnykill and madness series as well.
NB: You have recently gathered a lot of attention for your work on Bladee's "Reality Surf" music video, and even got mentioned in Hypebeast. What was it like working with Bladee, and how did you come up with the idea for the video?
NM: Working with bladee was an awesome experience coming from a creative standpoint. Being able to spitball ideas back and forth with him was an honor. Dude has some gnarly concepts and ideas. He already knew what he wanted and what kind of mood he pictured for the video all ready for me to interpret.
NB: Any other musicians that you would like to collaborate with in the future? Any non-musicians?
NM: As of right now I'm not looking for any specific collaborations but mostly to create more personal projects. My main focus is to build a world around my art and create little windows into each one.
NB: You focus a lot on shorter, social media friendly animations. Do you ever want to create something much longer?
NM: I do see myself eventually creating short films with a more narrative driven story in the future. I think the part that interests me the most about making animation is how immersive it can be and being able to integrate an immersive story with visual would be amazing
NB: Any shoutouts you would like to give?
NM: Im fortunate to have many people who have been supportive through my life to be able to name individually tbh! Shout outs to my moms ily
You can follow Nam Mac on Instagram here.