Former Penn State football player turned rapper Maserati Mo found no need to jet to New York or Los Angeles to shoot his latest music video — he did it right here in State College.
His “White and Blue REMIX” video was shot Wednesday night at Mezzanine, 420 E. College Ave., with the help of student dancers and production companies and will feature a slew of current Penn State and Philadelphia Eagles football players.
The song is a remix of Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa’s song “Black and Yellow,” which recently gained popularity far outside of state lines.
Maserati Mo, whose real name is Maurice Humphrey, said Khalifa is a “great guy” and gave him permission to remix the song.
“Most artists don’t really like you remixing their songs, but Wiz was like so cool and said, ‘Go ahead and do it,’ ” Humphrey said. “He said just make sure you do a good job, and I think I did a great job.”
Humphrey enlisted current Penn State football players including Justin Brown, Derek Moye and Mike Wallace, among others. He also said he appreciates his friend and supporter, Eagles running back LeSean McCoy — as well as several other Eagles players — made the trip up to State College to be in the video.
“Even after the storm last night, with the snow in Philly, they still said they were coming up,” he said. “I respected that a lot.”
McCoy will be in a segment of the video filmed at Humphrey’s foster parents’ house in Port Matilda as well as the club scene that was filmed at Mezzanine on Wednesday night with a public audience.
The premise for the video is modeled after the movie “The Hangover,” and will feature Humphrey and his crew waking up after a “crazy” night and trying to piece together what happened.
But Humphrey said the video has nothing to do with partying and drinking and instead is more about how easy it is to have a great time at Penn State.
“If you want to go to a great school and meet great people, Penn State is where to be,” he said. “I want to show that in the video.”
Randy Troy (senior-film and video) was called on to produce the video and owns his own production company, Conviction Studios. He said the project came on short notice but ultimately came together very well.
“This song has been playing in clubs around town, so it’s a local anthem right now,” he said. “We’re going to give the video that people want to see.”
Austin Sepulveda (senior-marketing) is the president and partner of the newly established, student-run and operated management company, S.A. management, which is also helping with the production of the video.
He said the video should be released in about two weeks.
“We want to make it perfect, though,” he said.
Mezzanine General Manager Lance Falkowski said he has known Humphrey for four years and was happy to give him the space to shoot the video.
“We’re happy to be supporting another Penn State alumni in his quest to be come a star,” he said.
Humphrey said his song reflects the fact that he thinks of Penn State as a family, and he’s glad the video will help to make that known.
“Penn State, they embrace me when it comes to music,” he said. “They don’t look at me and say, ‘Oh, he played football and now he’s doing music.’ They understand my music.”
