The BAZA music video was first released on the WorldStarHipHop YouTube channel on 15 October 2025. Conceived with the scale and narrative structure of a short film, the project attracted attention beyond the music-video circuit and received recognition from three separate film festival juries: FilmQuest, London Lift-Off and the Cannes Film Awards.
Following the release, director and producer Lewis Andrews began looking for a way to expand both the creative possibilities and international reach of the project. He launched an open-verse challenge through his Instagram account, inviting artists from around the world to record their own verses over the BAZA instrumental.
The prize was an opportunity to appear in a dedicated remix video published on the WorldStarHipHop Instagram feed, following the release of the original music video featuring Richard Akam.
The Open-Verse Challenge
The entry process was deliberately simple. Artists were asked to submit a short audio recording demonstrating what they could do with the beat. A fully mixed and mastered vocal was not required; the purpose was to hear each artist’s flow, writing style and interpretation of the instrumental.
The challenge specifically called for submissions from regions including the United States, Nigeria, South Korea and Germany. However, artists from other parts of the world were also encouraged to participate.
Andrews gave the artists complete freedom over their subject matter and shared the original BAZA project deck with anyone looking for further context or visual inspiration. Participants were also encouraged to perform in their native languages, helping the remix develop an authentically international sound rather than forcing every contribution into the same cultural or linguistic style.
The response exceeded expectations.
More than 300 artists contacted Andrews on Instagram requesting the instrumental and expressing an interest in taking part. Submissions arrived from Nigeria, the United States, South Korea, Germany and numerous other countries.
At a time when online engagement can often feel automated or impersonal, the level of genuine effort behind the entries was particularly striking. Artists were writing original verses, recording themselves over the beat and sending detailed vocal arrangements. Some even supplied separate ad-lib tracks to demonstrate how they imagined their performances working within a finished mix.
The volume of interest became so significant that Andrews created a dedicated mailing list to keep participants informed about submission deadlines and the progress of the competition. Regular updates were also shared through his Instagram account to recognise and support the artists taking part.
Selecting the Five Artists
After reviewing the submissions, the entries were narrowed down to five winning artists:
The announcement of the winners marked the beginning of the project’s next stage: creating an international remix and accompanying performance video.
The central concept was designed to be immediate and easy to understand. Built around the question “Who went harder?”, the video would show all five artists performing their verses from their respective home countries.
Although the final concept appeared simple, producing a coordinated performance across five countries presented a much greater logistical and creative challenge.
Building an International Collaboration
The first step was to bring the selected artists together in a WhatsApp group. Each artist introduced themselves and shared a short biography, allowing the participants to learn more about one another before production began.
Andrews wanted the video to feel like a single live performance rather than five unrelated clips placed next to one another. To create that sense of connection, he developed the idea of a microphone being passed from one artist to the next across the screen.
The microphone became the visual link between every location. Although each performer was filming independently in a different part of the world, the continuous handover would make it appear as though they were all participating in the same performance.
Before developing the visuals further, Andrews created an initial demo of the remix. He arranged the five selected verses into a structure that he felt gave each artist a distinct moment while allowing the song to build naturally.
The demo was shared with the artists for feedback and approval. Once the structure had been agreed, Andrews took the vocal stems to Westpoint Studios in London, where engineer Shane Shanahan mixed and mastered the finished track.
A major part of the process involved balancing recordings made by different artists, using different microphones and recording environments, so that the vocals felt as though they belonged within the same record. Particular attention was given to integrating Yung1Reggie’s powerful lead vocal with the remaining performances without diminishing the individuality of any artist.
Shanahan’s experience working with challenging source recordings proved invaluable. He had previously worked with vocals captured in highly restricted environments, including recordings made by prisoners, demonstrating his ability to shape unconventional audio files into polished, professional mixes.
Directing Across Five Countries
How do you go about coordinating 5 separate artists in different corners of the globe, all from your mobile phone?
Once the track was complete, Andrews produced a detailed filming brief for the artists. It outlined the required portrait format, encouraged a loose handheld quality and included guidance on performance, framing and lighting. The start of the process involved ordering international delivery of a dynamic microphone for any artist who didn’t own one.
Many of the initial recordings required revisions. Some artists needed to reshoot because of lighting conditions, camera positioning or elements of their performances. Despite the complications of directing remotely across different countries and time zones, the cooperation from the artists remained exceptional.
Each performer was asked to choose a historical landmark or a location that represented the part of the world in which they lived. The intention was for viewers to understand the international scale of the collaboration immediately, even before reading the artists’ names or countries.
The performances were also filmed at different times of day. These changing lighting conditions helped represent the movement across global time zones as the microphone travelled from artist to artist.
The most technically challenging element was planning the microphone handovers. Each pass had to be anticipated before filming, based on where the artist would eventually appear within the video’s grid layout. The performers needed to move the microphone in the correct direction so that every handover aligned convincingly with the next screen.
The fifth artist, ItsBaseBaby from Canada, was initially kept secret from the other performers, creating an additional reveal within the finished video.
Constructing the Final Video
The edit was visually straightforward in principle, but the post production process took longer than anticipated because of revised artist recordings and the translation required for verses that were not performed in English.
The opening four seconds were treated as particularly important. On social media, where viewers decide almost instantly whether to continue watching, the premise needed to be communicated without unnecessary explanation.
The video begins with a direct hook:
“I sent my beat to five international artists around the world, and this is what they did.”
The line simplifies the project’s wider history into a single statement that audiences can immediately understand. A rapid introduction then shows each artist alongside the flag of their country, establishing the global scope of the collaboration from the outset.
Bilingual subtitles were created for the non-English performances. Bold, word-by-word highlighting follows the timing of each verse, helping viewers understand the lyrics while also making the video accessible when watched without sound.
Simple visual transitions map the microphone’s journey across the screen, connecting each location and transforming the individual performances into a single continuous collaboration.
The WorldStarHipHop Release
The completed remix video was published as a dedicated post on the WorldStarHipHop Instagram feed.
For the selected artists, the release represented far more than another social-media upload. Their reactions ranged from disbelief to overwhelming happiness as they saw their performances presented to WorldStarHipHop’s global audience.
The project connected five independent artists who had never previously met, giving each of them a shared platform while preserving their individual languages, locations and styles.
For Andrews, their response became one of the most memorable parts of the entire BAZA project. What began as a simple invitation to record a verse evolved into a genuinely international creative exchange—bringing together artists, audiences and communities from across the world through a single beat.
You can see the full video on WorldStarHipHop’s instagram page below.
