Nash Pearson and Finn Baker with ARDN on set of Oblé Reed's 'SALAD' video. Photo by Brayden McCollum.
The very first shot of Oblé Reed’s “HOMETOWNHERO.” is the Space Needle, set against a temperamental sky: classic Seattle iconography as a clear signal that the video, its song, and the man who raps it are one with the city. The first time you actually see Reed, he’s hanging halfway out the passenger seat of a car in a white Sonics cap as a string of forest-green words flash across the screen: “Directed by Nash Pearson.”
Pearson’s direction and editing have arguably played a role in helping make “HOMETOWNHERO.” a runaway success for the 23-year-old rapper, whose debut LP LINDENAVE! was named the #1 album of 2023 by the Seattle Times—-and earned him a Sonic Guild grant the same year. It’s hard to tear your eyes away from the screen when “HOMETOWNHERO.” is playing, and not because of cheap retention tricks. It’s all Pearson’s precocious expertise of the form: shots that linger exactly as long as they need to, head-spinning transitions, stunning angles, and compelling camera movements, all in service of fashioning an expensive-looking production on a modest budget.
Pearson has been working with Reed since 2020, when Pearson was yet an enterprising high school senior. As a teenager, Pearson had cut his teeth shooting off-the-cuff videos for his classmates—J Apollo, Dmann, and L$YM—before starting up a cypher (a freestyle rap gathering) in 2019 for those friends to broadcast their lyrical acrobatics. “There was no thought of making any money or anything from it,” he says of those days. “It was just like “This is a cool idea. I've seen this elsewhere, and I want to try to do this.”
The second Citywide Cypher took place in 2020, in the middle of quarantine, and offered a March Madness-style bracket for its entrants to compete in. Reed, at the time a fresh college dropout who rapped using the name Moondrop, won the whole thing. The prize: a free music video, which resulted in the duo’s first collaboration, “COFFEE.” For the video, Pearson decided against his typical run-and-gun, on-the-spot shooting style in favor of more advance planning and a loose storyboard.
The pair worked well together—so well, in fact, that Pearson would end up directing a visualizer for every single song on Reed’s debut album, along with music videos for three of those songs (including “HOMETOWNHERO.”). Armed with two cameras, including a 5-year-old mirrorless Sony A7 III, Pearson and Reed traveled across Washington, set up shop in locations apropos of each song, and filmed. In each instance, the Pacific Northwest unfolds more like a main character than mere supporting scenery. The visualizer for “HOMETOWNHERO.,” for instance, takes place entirely within the Capitol Hill light rail station, the geometry of its parallel escalators serving as backdrop, with Mike Ross’s iconic segmented Jet Kiss sculpture suspended overhead. Meanwhile, “WHERETHEMONEYGROWS.” finds Reed perched on a log in the middle of a Bellingham lake. For “SKYFALLING.” the duo traveled to eastern Washington, where Pearson filmed Reed traipsing across a sandy expanse. It was on that shoot—a two-day road trip— that the bond between the two artists cemented. “Without this trip,” Pearson wrote at the time, “I’m not sure where he and I would be today.”
Nash Pearson with Oblé Reed, Selya Nimyel, Elshadayi Antenhe and Alyssa T. Photo by David Romero.
“It's always been very collaborative,” he says in retrospect, a year and a half later. “Choosing people that share a similar vision is very important, because then you get into this groove, these little pockets where you’re building off of each other. It’s very fluid.”
The videos for LINDENAVE! weren’t just a come-up for Reed; they did more for Pearson’s young career than anything before it, positioning him as an immense talent rising in tandem with the most ambitious of Seattle’s hip-hop community. Opportunities have been coming fast and hard since. Last August, he worked behind the scenes with Jack Begart, a director who has made videos for Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Jack Harlow, and (of particular significance to Pearson) the Portland-based artist Aminé, whose music and videos served as an inspiration for Pearson in his formative years.
A 2022 encounter with Bay Area director Finn Baker proved to be another formative influence. Baker had flown into Seattle to direct the shoot for Yonny’s “PAID,” and Pearson, who was struggling to juggle both professional jobs and studies at Western Washington University, took inspiration from the fact that Baker had dropped out of college to pursue his dreams. And it was working out. Pearson, meanwhile, had to make the drive back to Bellingham each morning for school. Soon after their encounter, Pearson followed suit and left school to shoot video full-time.
Pearson has since spent those lost college days balancing freelance commercial work with more ambitious shoots alongside a rotating cast of collaborators, including Baker (who has since relocated to Seattle), photographers Emery Lemos and Jay Hendrickson, and engineer Evan George.
Since LINDENAVE! Pearson has only continued to hone his skills. The work, of course, speaks for itself. Pearson’s oeuvre is packed with imagery that centers place and landscape with breathtaking effect, establishing an unmistakable signature style. The wide shot of Oblé Reed on a Washington State Ferry for “CIRCLE THEORY.” The image of Yonny kitty-corner on a railing, ascendant over the misty Olympic Mountains. Antwane Tyler in an Everett driveway, cast in the ochre hues of a sinking sun. To hear Pearson talk about his projects is to hear a future master of the craft, able to both visualize the grandiose and execute the granular. Whatever’s next in the center of his lens is anybody’s guess, but it’ll be worth watching.
MUSIC SPOTLIGHT explores collaborations between Seattle musicians and visual artists. From album covers to music videos, these creative partnerships shape the city’s artistic identity—deeply rooted in the region, yet resonant across the world. Presented in collaboration with Sonic Guild Seattle - supporting music creation and performance in our community. @sonicguildseattlewa
