In a recent phone interview with Remixd Magazine, director TayyOfficial discussed growing up in Philadelphia, how he got into the music industry, his goals for the future, and more!
TayyOfficial is one of Philadelphia’s rising stars in the visual directing world. The 22-year old director has helped propel the careers of local rising stars like Interscope signee YXNG K.A, Lil Muk, and Leaf Ward as well as Atlanta’s CEO Trayle, among many others.
“I try to be creative but subtle at the same time…I keep it focused more on the artist than the edits,” TayyOfficial told RemixdMagazine.
However, as unique as his style is and as easily identifiable as his logo is in and out of Philly, the young director said that he had to teach himself everything and build from the ground up.
Raised in West Philadelphia, Tayy’s mother and father exposed him to artists like Mary J. Blige, Musiq Soulchild, DMX, and many others at a young age. He quickly became infatuated by rap culture in particular and first found his way into the industry doing graphic design and cover art.
However, this would quickly lead him into another avenue of music when a close friend, rapper Jae100, needed to shoot videos for some songs that were bubbling on Soundcloud.
“He didn’t have money at the time to go to the hottest people in the city so I was just like ‘alright lemme see what I can do’,” TayyOfficial stated.
Two days after he bought his first camera, he shot Jae100 and YBC Heimo’s “The Life” which sits at nearly 15k views on Youtube. Despite, Jae100 going on to become one of the premier artists in the underground Philly rap scene, the director admitted during the interview that many of his early videos weren’t his best.
“I couldn’t even edit at first like I didn’t have the right laptop to edit videos or anything,” the Philly native explained.
However, he revealed that he got better at directing and editing by tinkering with “different cameras and see what this one could do that another one couldn’t.”
As he improved his skills, the artists that he started working with were gaining more and more traction. TayyOfficial’s next big step would come in the form of his discovery of YXNG K.A after meeting him at a studio session early in K.A’s career.
“I recorded the studio session…he’s playing with [rapping] and everything and I’m listening to it and I’m like ‘damn like his flows are crazy’. What he was saying wasn’t all that crazy like he didn’t have crazy bars but when I heard his flows I was just like damn that’s crazy like he’s nice for real,” TayyOfficial said during the interview.
One of K.A’s first viral moments came in the form of a since-deleted clip recorded by Tayy of the young rapper making the song “Imagine That.” YXNG K.A and Tayy fostered a strong friendship and the two would go on to work on several videos including “Living the Dream” with Lil Poppa, “Unfinished Business” and “It Is What It Is,” to name a few.
Given all of the success TayyOfficial has had, you might expect him to have his sights set solely on the biggest artists in the game. But he tells Remixd Magazine that this is not necessarily the case.
“That’s my biggest goal [working with up and coming artists] because I like working with people that are just getting in the door and that are just getting things rolling,” he said. “I get a thrill out of that … seeing their progress.”
He cited acts like YNW B Slime, Taleban Dooda, Stunna Gambino and No Cap as collabs that he’d want to work with in the near future.
Make sure to keep a look out for TayyOfficial by subscribing to his Youtube channel and following him on Instagram @TayyOfficial_!
