Mama Said 1 Thing UNCENSORED Mashup - LL Cool J Vs Amerie

Don’t get too excited! It’s not like there’s nudity or violence in the video or anything. But when I tried to post this on youtube the parts with Amerie’s vocals kept getting it blocked from viewing. Specifically, footage from the “1 Thing” video was getting it blocked. So what I’ve done is upload it to Vimeo.

1728 hours in photoshop

This was definitely a learning experience. Mashups are tricky to upload. You can’t really make money off these because they always get claimed. That’s how you know I’m doing this for the love of the game. I just want people to enjoy my mashups. I’m not trying to get rich of this or anything. But what did I learn? In the future when I make mashup music videos I should avoid using original footage. It just looks to YouTube like I’m reposting the original video. Fair enough!

I never know what to say about these tracks. This mashup combines “1 Thing” by Amerie and “Mama Said Knock You Out” by LL Cool J. But don’t pay too close attention to the lyrics; they don’t really go together. I was matching the vibes and high energy of these two songs, I wasn’t really paying attention to the lyrics. I’m trying to remember now if the mashups I listen to typically have matching lyrics. Eh, it’s half and half. Most mashups just throw away the original vocals now that I think of if. I’m the weirdo for trying to make it sound like a duet or feature/remix.

Making the Video

This is a simple video. I just wanted to get something out there. I figured the fastest video to make would be to mix the originals. Took me about three weeks of production off-and-on. “Mama Said Knock You Out” is in black and white but “1 Thing” isn’t. I put a black & white filter over everything so they match. The original idea was to incorporate live performance footage into the mix but that just made everything cluttered. It felt off so I kept it simple.

I released this video in 4:3. That presented its own challenge. At first Final Cut didn’t want to export the 4:3 footage in a resolution higher than 1280x960. I had to find a way around that. The other tricky thing was cropping “Mama Said Knock You Out” to 4:3. The label put it online as 16:9 but obviously in 1990 when it was released nobody saw it in widescreen. I’m guessing the music video was recored in wide scope. Not uncommon for a music video. They just paid attention to framing because they knew only the middle would be seen. I didn’t have to make any adjustments after cropping, everything is in frame. I just got a new computer and I’m still learning Final Cut so that’s where most of the difficulty was for me.

The final exported resolution is 1440x1080 but I’m thinking maybe I should have gone 1920x1440. The problem is when you upload these things online the high quality audio doesn’t kick in unless you upload “HD.” It’s not that I think you’re gaining any resolution by making it bigger, I’m just doing that so the video hosts retains the audio quality. To be honest both these videos are lower res than I would have liked. The “1 Thing” video was uploaded to YouTube in 2009 in 480p, give me a break! I wish there was a place that had HD music videos.

But yeah, maybe I should take this as a sign that I should be more creative in my efforts in the future.

Listen & Download

Closing Thoughts

I was thinking of maybe making a karaoke version. Just mute LL Cool J’s so you can sing his parts. But the fact that the Amerie footage is blocked on YouTube gives me pause. YouTube is used at a lot of karaoke bars by the way. I love the idea of people using my mashups for Karaoke. Fuck it, I might still do that.

Follow @AlainChristian Everywhere!

If following a blog is too 90s for you then check out the links below. Let’s meet each other halfway!

SowndHaus - Here’s the SECOND best way to get at my music. (FIRST best is here, obvi.) For now, I’m sticking to mashups and SowndHaus is a mashup social network. Early 2000s me would have LOVED this! If you like mashups go to SowndHaus. Let’s be honest, they’ll get taken down eventually. Enjoy it while it’s here.

YouTube - Even though YouTube has its problems my videos are generally allowed to stay up. I just don’t make any money from them. Video quality always takes a hit tho. No downloads allowed so you need to used a third-party thing to save videos. Why is that by the way? Why can’t people download YouTube videos?

Vimeo - I don’t be using this like a social network but I started posting videos here. I feel like the quality is higher than YouTube and they allow you to download the original video anyway so image quality doesn’t even matter when you think about t. Just DL the original video!

Instagram - As much as I want to promote my IG account, my mashups get taken down on there all the time. Even older ones get taken down later. I should probably change my IG focus. Also there’s a 60-second limit to your videos. ALSO the audio and video tend to be out of sync! I really should stop posting AMVs there, the sync is always ruined. IG should have kept to picture hosting. Am I wrong?

Soundcloud - Did I put this in as a joke? Soundcloud is the WORST place for mashups! They HAAAATE mashups on Soundcloud! My shit never stays up. But hey, if it does you can find it here. I mean I always try.

Twitter - I guess? I’m active on here and post music videos but like Instagram there’s a limit to how long the video can be and no downloads allowed. By the way I have my twitter set to delete anything older than 30 days. Just feels like a smart practice.