Flatbush Zombies Get Skeletal in James Blake-Produced ‘Afterlife’

Flatbush Zombies have released “Afterlife,” a stellar new single produced by James Blake.

Shot in Paris prior to the pandemic, the accompanying video features the Brooklyn rap trio in X-ray form — partying, riding in cars and counting money. “Anything suss I’m allergic/I grew up in the hood I deserve it,” Erick the Architect claims across dizzying beats. “Paranoid when I’m counting every dolla because tomorrow ain’t promised when you’re black.”

Director Arnaud Bresson strove to achieve an effect similar to X-ray technology for the video. “Today, there is no technology that X-ray films a living being without endangering it, so we worked hand in hand with a post-production company to develop a technical device that would allow us to achieve a similar effect,” he said in a statement. “We used multi-camera tracking, recorded the positions and movements of our characters to extract and apply to our 3D compositions. It took four months of work to find the perfect style.”

“Afterlife” is the first offering from the trio’s sessions with James Blake. They first met in person after a Flatbush Zombies show in Los Angeles in 2018, after Erick the Architect contacted him on Twitter.

Flatbush Zombies kicked off the summer by releasing the EP Now, More Than Ever, in June. The group donated 100% of their merch sales related to the EP to charities supporting social justice, which totaled $158,000.