NH Rap Video Goes Viral on YouTube
By CAROL ROBIDOUX
New Hampshire Union Leader Staff
April 2, 2010
HAMPSTEAD – Calling out sick is the same as calling out famous for a guy like Christian Wisecarver -- if, by "sick," you are assigning street cred to the New Hampshire-themed video he dropped two days ago on YouTube.
Talk about sick: It's so viral that as of Friday night, it has had almost 300,000 viewings.
"I told my boss I was calling out famous. I needed a day just to catch my breath," said Wisecarver, who's been fielding non-stop e-mails and phone calls ever since uploading his latest work, "Granite State of Mind" Wednesday morning.
What he's produced with a little help from his friends is a clever spin on rapper Jay-Z's ode to New York City, "Empire State of Mind," so clever -- and laden with New Hampshire history, trivia and fun facts -- that it was almost assigned as homework for a group of fourth-graders. Almost.
If only he hadn't included one profanity.
"You know, in retrospect, I wish I hadn't put it in there. I didn't even want to include it, but it just sort of happened," said Wisecarver, only a little apologetic for the slip of the tongue that is just a bleep-out in an otherwise stellar rundown of all things New Hampshire, including everything from geography and landmarks to hot spots and newsmakers.
He recruited a friend of a friend, Holly Winchell, to help on vocals. His musical partner, Billy Donohue, appears as "the plow guy."
Wisecarver had a good feeling about this one. He's made more than two dozen videos. But this was the first time he followed in the footsteps of "Weird Al" Yankovich and parodied a hit. It had all the ingredients for a winner.
"You know, the original was sort of begging to be parodied, the music is so catchy. It really started when I was listening to the lyrics of the Jay-Z video -- it just started to come together in my head," said Wisecarver.
"And he had access to a New Hampshire belt buckle," said Darby DeChristopher, the video's producer, referring to one of the many subtle nods to the Granite State included in the four minute and 43-second video.
She works with Wisecarver as a video production specialist in Cambridge, and is one quarter of The Super Secret Project, Wisecarver's production company.
"Of all the videos we've done, this one is definitely the most viral. I did one a few years back, an Ode to Zach Braff. He actually posted that one on his site and they showed it on 'The Tonight Show' when he was on," Wisecarver said.
His day off is just a three-day weekend -- he's not quitting his day job anytime soon. But you don't get your degree in filmmaking from Emerson College and spend a year in Los Angeles working with directors like James L. Brooks on films like Adam Sandler's "Spanglish" if you aren't dead serious about making it as a filmmaker.
"Granite State of Mind" combines his favorite genres, music and comedy.
"Actually, I love making the music videos. We need lots of ideas -- like, we're working on an animated music video about road rage," said Wisecarver. "You know, road rage in a funny, music video kind of way."
A 1996 graduate of Timberlane High School, Wisecarver's creative juices are just starting to flow. He's also working on putting together a live sketch comedy type show, for live performances of their music videos, and he's writing a book. Sort of.
"Actually, I said if this video didn't do something, I was going to quit making videos and write a book. Now that it's taking off, I may have to write the book anyway," Wisecarver said.
