Interview by Lauryn Hinton | Creative Director, TBD Magazine
How did you first get started in photography and videography?
The foundation of 808 TV will always be me just wanting to document my life. It's like the end of 2019 me, my friends, living such a unique lifestyle that I had to document. So that's basically the foundation of it. Me recording with my phone, saving up enough money to buy a real camera. Really staying true to my unique VHS style. Same photography style, because that's where my heart is at. It's always having a deep love for the 90s that's going all the way back to freshman year middle school vibes on 90s, R&B, rappers like Tupac and stuff like that. A deep connection with that era.
2021 is when I really started making a name for myself with videography. I started off being known for recap videos and Always going and shooting events, and then drop the video the next day. Everybody used to always think it was crazy. I always had a simplicity to my creative style. I always loved raw moments, so I didn't really have to edit much. I always love capturing the rawness of the moment, especially on my best cameras. It made it feel more real.
What was influencing you while you were growing up?
I went to school in East Ascension and Gonzales. I always tell people it's like Gravity Falls over there. It's so unique and has so much diverse stuff. That really led me to just want to document my life. My senior year of high school was so amazing. When you hear stories about people talking about what we did senior year, it's was spring break and all that. I always tell people, If I would have had a camera at the beginning of my senior year, I'd probably be like a millionaire YouTuber right now, just the type of life we was living. That really propelled me to feel like my life is worth documenting, even if it's just for myself. Like, I don't really need a ton of people to look at it, I always tell myself, I'm taking down these memories so when I'm 40 years old, I can go back and watch them and say this is what I was doing during this time of my life. It propelled me into building this whole creative thing that I have right now, 808 TV as this creative brand. So, yeah, living a crazy life at 18 years old, traveling, and seeing the world.
Is there anything in your travels that really stood out to you or even the music that you were listening to during that time that may have inspired you?
ASAP Rocky and Playboy Carti played a huge part. ASAP Rocky has this unique video on YouTube called The AWGE DVD Tape a lot of people don't know about, but I consider it the greatest video I've ever watched in my life. After watching that video, it showed me a different dimension to where, and how you can document life. I remember looking at the video, and looking at my friends. I was like, bro, we are living the exact same life they are living, they just have more money than us. We was just lit ass people, always partying, always wanting to turn up and stuff like that. I would say that's definitely some of my main influences in my early stages.
Your work prominently features the 80s/90s VHS aesthetic. What draws you to this nostalgic style, and how does it influence the mood of your photography and videography?
I think the real foundation that influenced my art is that I always wanted to be different. It's like, I always strive to do stuff that people are not doing. VHS and digital cameras, they've made a comeback but when I was loving it, It was only a select few people that really loved VHS and old analog stuff like that. I was raised on a lot of 90s R&B. I know a lot about the 90s Hip Hop era and stuff from that time period. I can't really explain it, the aesthetic to me, it doesn't get better than that. You got a real, authentic VHS camera, and you're able to present life on it. It kind of transports you back to that era. I always feel like in the 90s, everybody was in the moment because they didn't have a phone, you didn't have social media, like you had to be locked in. The present moment is such a big part of my life. It's like me still carrying on that legacy of the 90s but it's more me. Being focused on that is what it's about. Being in the moment, documenting stuff with your friends. Just presenting it like that. I just love it. I can't explain it.
How do you balance storytelling with aesthetics in your work?
I always told myself that I want to be open to do anything. Versatility is a really big thing to me. 808 TV collabs, and the people it shines more light on. So it's always unique, just a unique collaboration thing. It's kind of like consider me an amazing producer, and I'm going around letting different unique rappers hop on my beat and but I'm making the beat specifically for them. So it's like, my beat for this artist is not gonna sound the same way as my beat for another artist. That's how I like to do my own VHS clips. I never want to create the same thing twice. So it's a kind of nuance of my videos. They're all different in some way.
Tell us about working with other creatives and collaborating with other people and projects?
It's been amazing. To be able to meet people for the first time and create with genuine people that are also very passionate. I love working with people who are as passionate about their art, as I am about my art. I always had the ability to make friends on the spot. going back to when I was a kid, I have always been a very open person. Working with creatives, it's been amazing. Baton Rouge has an amazing creative scene. I'm so thankful, I've been a part of it for the past four years now, since 2021 when I first started coming out here and creating, and it's just been so beautiful. Watching how everybody has grown from that moment into this, where we are right now is just amazing. I can't even explain it. I'm just grateful to be a part of it.
If I gotta give one, one shout out, definitely my boy, Wakai, the first time we ever worked together, first time we ever met and became close, we were working on a music video together. So our friendship started off with creativity. I've traveled with them all over the place.
What ways do you think that you have been able to feed into your community with your work?
I would definitely say documenting pure moments. Yesterday I sent an old video to one of my DJ friends, and it was the first ever set he ever did. He probably didn't even know that I recorded it. Moments like that. I was always on the scene.
Back when I first started doing it, like, 2021/2022 and I was strictly doing video stuff, I was always at whatever event was and stuff was going down. I was there recording people in the moment and all those videos are still on my YouTube channel. I have all those memories piled up and stuff. I definitely always wanted that to be like a centerpiece for 808 TV. Somebody that does it for the culture, documenting the scene, documenting the creative scene. I always like to tell people, I'm on ground zero with it.
It's a special thing. I have never told anybody what to do in front of a camera, right? I just put the camera in front of people's faces. I want people to however or whatever you want to give me, you give me that. And I'm cool. I never tell people to follow a direction, like you give me you. That's all I want is raw moments.
A lot of people really look at me as a real OG to the underground scene, because I've been doing it for so long at this point. A lot of like creatives that's just starting to come up, they look up to me and I'll always tell people, like I just said, I do it for the culture first and for the people that's coming up behind me. No matter how big I get, I always want to be able to shine light on others. No matter how big I get with this, I want to bring everybody with me. And from that, I always tell people, I don't even think there is an 808 TV without The Social Boot, because without them I'd never get introduced into the Baton Rouge creative scene.
I was always a unique creative person, and around my friend group I was the only person that was creative. So when I got introduced into The Social Boot and the BR creative scene, I didn't know I was talented. And some other talented people told me I was talented. People like Ugo from The Social Boot helped open the door for me to go into the creative scene.
I got involved with The Social Boot around the tail end of the boom of the pandemic. My friends and I were heading to a roadtrip to Nashville and before we left Louisiana, I remember telling my friends something is going to happen during this trip. I don't know. I don't know if it's going to be good or bad, but something life changing is about to happen to me. I'm very in tune with myself. And I think I was just coming off my spiritual awakening, so I was very in tune with the universe and everything at the time. During the trip I received a call from Ugo inviting me to join The Social Boot. I've been knowing Ugo from high school. And I remember I was always saying he was one of the main people that inspired me to just be myself.
Can you tell me a little bit more about The Social Boot and just what it's like working on that project, and just a little bit about what you guys have been working on?
Working with the Social Boot, we were working on basically a documentary of us going around interviewing people about health care and how that affects their lifestyle. We also got the chance to interview a native tribe from Houma. Another main part about The Social Boot was interviewing people around the topic of, Do you feel like an outsider art? What is an outsider to you? We tackled very personal questions with a wide variety of topics. I always tell people, working on that documentary. It's like, I feel like, that's how Michael Jackson felt working on Thriller. That's how it really took. It was like you knew that you're a part of something special. Every day when we was working, that was my first time being on a real set with real cameras. That was all new to me, and I learned a lot from that documentary, because filming is something I want to do. The highest potential I see for myself is being a director. I was 20 years old when we first started. I'm 23 now. I learned a lot of aspects just from being a part of that documentary and gained a lot of confidence. The documentary should be coming soon, hopefully next year, but when the release happens, there's gonna be a big release. I know we already have two or three movie theaters we're renting out in Louisiana, and I think we're doing the showing in Atlanta. I feel like 2021 was like the big bang of a new creative theme in Louisiana, especially in BR. I feel like it's the before and after social media.
Speaking of 2021 you said that you decided to start taking photography seriously for a year. What started that?
It was definitely this book The 808 Theory. I had the idea to do the book last year, but I'm thankful I didn't, because the pictures I took this year are way better than last year. I remember it was one picture I took. I stayed in California for a whole week with my friend, Wakai. He was having his album release party down there and around the time, I was really starting to take pictures. And I just noticed, I looked at my pictures and I felt something. When I looked at my pictures, I was like, these are unique, a certain way. And I realized that I had a unique eye for capturing like in the moment stuff. There's this amazing photographer from Atlanta called Gunner Stall. He's a top tier photographer. And I remember I was just looking on his page for inspiration. I remember I thought to myself, let me go on Google and see what camera he uses. So I went to go see what camera it was. I remember I learned what a medium format film camera was. And I remember telling myself, if you buy this camera, you have to believe in yourself that you're gonna be able to create amazing work from it. I had the full confidence that if I was to get that camera, I knew I can make amazing work. I know the work will stand out, because nobody's going to be used to seeing pictures like that. No one uses a camera like that in Louisiana or especially just in BR. So that was the main thing that just launched me to take this photography series forward. When I got my first roll back from that camera, I was like, this is it, I felt like I struck gold. From that, it was just let's lock in and see what can come from the work. I remember telling myself, I want to retire around 2030 and I want to dedicate one year of my life just to master a skill. This was basically my first time dedicating a whole year to photography. We just gonna see how good we can get with it. So I just locked in with it. I got up in the lab studying, watching lectures about how to take amazing photos and compose a picture and stuff like that.
How do you stay inspired? And like especially, to push your creative boundaries. You're starting in basically a new medium, even though it's pretty adjacent. But how do you stay inspired to push those boundaries?
I tell people I am inspired by life in general. And my friends. I consider my friends to be some of the greatest camera men that I know. Just artists I know in general. It's like, when they drop amazing stuff, it makes me, I wouldn't call it like, a competitive mindset. It's kind of like iron sharpens iron. Like that makes me want to go out and create some hard work and just express my passion. I'm always trying to one up myself in some type of way. I'm always like, Alright, what's what's next? Yeah, I'm always on that. I'll never take that for granted if people are enjoying what I'm bringing into the world, I want to bring more of that into the world and continue to elevate and stuff, right? But that's simply what inspires my day to day process.
What can we expect to see inside of The 808 Theory?
It's really a photo book. It's really a time capsule of my whole 2024 year. A unique thing about the book is that every single picture I took this year is in there. I have certain chapters written about how I feel about what creating is to me. Just inviting you into my mind. The book is basically inviting you into my world, how I feel about creativity. I have a section dedicated to my whole trip to New York. I like that it was a place where I fell in love with photography again. You can expect amazingly written out, just unique from the heart, not really that deep. And amazing photos. It hits different when you see the type of photos I take. And a physical medium, because that's how they're meant to be presented. So it just looks amazing. I'll say you're going to see mind blowing photos and with every page it keeps building and building.
To see more of Taij Stewart’s photographic journey, be sure to check out his new book, The 808 Theory.
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