Jay-Z & Kanye West Get Down with ‘Otis’ in a Maybach: Music Monday
Anchored by an Otis Redding hook, the hip hop icons tear it up in their heavily modded Maybach 57 for the 2011 hit single.
Welcome to Team Speed Music Monday, where we feature music videos from our jukebox where the cars steal the spotlight from the stars.
Back in 2011, Jay-Z and Kanye West joined forces for their first collaborative album, Watch the Throne. The album had a ton of guests, including Beyoncé, Frank Ocean, and a couple of posthumous performances from Curtis Mayfield and Otis Redding.
Redding’s appearance would be on the second single from the album, “Otis.” The song dropped on July 20, 2011, where it peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and No. 2 on both Billboard’s Hot Rap Songs and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. But it’s the video for the song that stole the show.
Specifically, it was the 2004 Maybach 57 that took the spotlight from the hip hop legends, beginning with its total transformation from a sedate luxury sedan to a glossed-up beast that would be at home in the Mad Max franchise (if it were filmed in Los Angeles instead of Australia).
The end result is a fire-breathing Maybach with the hood and trunk lids on opposite ends of the car, wide bare-metal fenders, structural reinforcement to keep the car from folding up on itself, and plenty of open-air madness for Yeezy, Hova, and four models to enjoy.
“I invented swag / Poppin’ bottles, puttin’ supermodels in the cab, proof / I guess I got my swagger back, truth,” Jay-Z fires off in his first verse. West comes back in his first verse with “They say I’m crazy, well, I’m ’bout to go dumb again / They ain’t see me ’cause I pulled up in my other Benz / Last week I was in my other other Benz.” The back and forth between the two hits the listener with punches of ecstasy from one line to the next, all driven with that classic “Try a Little Tenderness” sample from Redding.
The altered Maybach was later put up for auction, with the proceeds going to Save the Children’s efforts in East Africa, which was dealing with severe drought at the time. The car, originally $350,000, was estimated to be worth $100,000 to $150,000 at auction, but only netted $60,000 in the end.
Where the Maybach is now is anybody’s guess, but we hope its owner is getting as much out of it as Kanye and Jay-Z did back in the early days of the New ’10s.
And if you want to see what else we’ve covered for “Music Monday,” have a look:
- “Carz” – Sir Mix-A-Lot
- “Better” – Khalid
- “Bad Girls” – M.I.A.
- “ProtoVision” – Kavinsky
- “I Can’t Drive 55” – Sammy Hagar
Join the Team Speed forums now!
