Cameron McCloud Gets Trippy With Dallas Museum of Art Painting in New Video

Cameron McCloud burst onto the Dallas music scene in 2015 after a video of him sneaking backstage at the Bomb Factory and Erykah Badu’s freestyle exploded. What followed was a torrent of success for McCloud and his band, hip-hop collective Cure for Paranoia.

Since then, the band has played numerous gigs at the Bomb Factory (now simply called The Factory) and received a few Dallas Observer Music Awards. McCloud also won Dallas’ most ambitious artist with his solo work. His new music video for “Texas Tea” was filmed at the Dallas Museum of Art using guerrilla tactics. We caught up with him in the car as he strolled with his new collaborator, R&B powerhouse Angélica Rahe.

“We came in and shot this with The Hustle Hustle Collective,” McCloud said of the video. “They’re the ones who shot my most recent video where I’m protesting myself and burning myself at the stake. We went into it knowing we only had one day to shoot and get this out. … We did it. shot yesterday knowing we had to release it this morning.

“I used to procrastinate hella, hella bad, but not so bad,” McCloud continues with a laugh. “Finally the day, we were like, come in, beg your pardon, not permission type shit.”

McCloud says they didn’t exactly have permission to film at the DMA.

“That shit didn’t work out,” he says. “They were like ‘Nah, what are you all doing?’ and sort of sent us off but on the way out we were stopped by one of the managers and he said ‘That’s a good look at the art museum…as long as you don’t jump on the coins or that you don’t play with the other customers, go ahead. We eliminated it in less than five minutes.

The Dallas Museum of Art did not respond to our request for comment.

The video consists of a kind of conversation between McCloud and the painting “Christ as Savior of the World (Salvator Mundi)” by an unknown South American artist from the late 18th century. The painting has been anthropomorphized by the wonders of video editing magic to be able to respond.

“As far as the concept goes, it was created by Tyler Sloane,” says McCloud. “We wanted to relate to the whole [McCloud’s lyrics for the song “Art Show”] “Come in the gallery, bitch, I’m the art show”, but also giving art a chance to speak too… We basically meant to say that being inspired by art is what makes me help make music and stay creative, so it’s not just me talking [as the art]it’s also the art that speaks [to me] also…”

McCloud says this idea comes from his undying gratitude for being in such a vibrant and diverse arts city.

“I can name dozens of artists who constantly inspire me and who live around me, and a major influence in wanting to do this at the Dallas Museum of Art is that I really want to be integrated into the city and [tap] to all the talent that surrounds me,” he says.

Watch “Texas Tea” below:

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