001 BEATS - VOLKSWAGEN SOUTH AFRICA
In 2016 Volkswagen South Africa launched a special edition version their Polo model. Beats by Dre the worlds’ most loved
premium audio brands are now in one of South Africa’s most loved car brands.
To let people know about the new sound collaboration between Volkswagen and BeatsAudio, and to highlight the exceptional sound quality
that’s in the new Polo Beats, we turned one into a recording studio on wheels.
THE ARTISTS
Finding the artists to create the track happened by chance.
Johannesburg-born hip-hop star, Kwesta did an interview on YFM discussing “his” Jozi, how the city affected his music and what he felt the Jozi Sound was.
YFM DJ, DJ Sabby opened the ‘Jozi Sound’
conversation on Twitter, and music producer Ross Dabone joined the conversation by sending in a sound bite of a Jozi sound project he had been working on. Kwesta liked Ross’ sound so much, he freestyled over it live on air. A collaboration waiting to happen, and one Volkswagen took advantage of.
THE TECH
GEOLOCATION
Instruments and sounds were digitally dispersed and geotagged across downtown Jozi. Ross and Kwesta needed the tech developed by Volkswagen to navigate the streets in the Polo Beats to collect the sounds and build a track.
LAUNCHPAD
Once the car came within a 100m radius of the sound, a file will automatically be sent to Ross’ mounted computer in the car. From there he manipulated the sound through the use of his Launchpad and the car itself.
TIME
The car was also connected to the technology, the sounds tempo could be manipulated
by the speed of the car.
THE TRACK
Volkswagen gave Kwesta and Ross 12 hours (one night) to create 011 Beats. A challenge the two stars managed to accomplish, considering they never heard the sounds dispersed across the city, and never having worked together before. Kwesta also managed to call on one of his beat-boxing friends to help with the track, when they felt the track was lacking a creative direction.
THE MUSIC VIDEO
Two weeks after the release of the track, the music video was released across all
Volkswagen social media platforms, as well as the Volkswagen website and YouTube channel. The video worked as both a documentary, in terms of how the track came to life, and a music video.
It was shot this way to prove the process wasn’t a setup,
as well making sure it still felt like an entertaining video to watch.