Lil Skie's "Nowadays" video has reached over 60 million views on YouTube and the success of the visuals can be thanked by the director, Cole Bennett.
The Lyrical Lemonade owner explained how the video idea was originally made for Skies' track "Big Money" but he had a better "feeling" about doing "Nowadays." He also told Pigeons and Planes that since the video was being shot at his old high school in Illinois, he wanted it to have a positive message. After they were done the filming, Cole received numerous text messages from a teacher who seriously didn't want to the associate the school with a rapper with face tattoos.
"I was in Europe on tour with Ski Mask, and my teacher was blowing me up on my phone saying, 'We can’t release the video. This can’t come out. We had a meeting with the school board, and everyone voted it down.'" he told the publication. "So I landed back in Chicago, and I typed up this three-page counter argument for every argument they could try to use about everything. Because I knew how big this was gonna be, and I knew how harmless it was—and keep in mind, they hadn’t seen any of the footage, or heard the song at all."
Cole did his research and trusted his gut to drop the video, knowing they couldn't ban it.
"‘Cause I knew how impactful it was, ‘cause that’s inspiration! It’s a very small town, so to see these kids’ favorite rappers in their high school, and now the song’s on the Billboard Hot 100—that’s crazy!" he said. "And I don’t think the school sees all the benefits of it, but they saw it as, 'Cole Bennett’s doing a video here and in the past he’s had videos with guns...' And I was just, 'At Lyrical Lemonade, we have a positive message. My previous videos have no reflection on what I’m bringing to your school.'"