Murderer

Released
 Recorded
 Length
 Album

**"Murderer"** is a song written by Ren for the *Sick Boi* album. The one-word "murderer" hook is a tribute to the 1993 song of the same name, by Barrington Levy.

The official music video for the studio-produced song premiered 20 July 2023 on YouTube, and garnered a million views in about ten days. This was followed by a video for a live acoustic version three weeks later.

## Official music video

The "Murderer" video was filmed by Luke Flegg, intended as another in Ren's long string of ambitious single-shot music videos. According to Luke, they tried for two days to get a true single-shot with the trickier parts of the filming smooth enough to satisfy everyone. In the end they bowed to filming constraints and chose to make two edits, one when the camera goes into the back seat of the car, and a second when it comes out. Despite some initial reactor speculation to the contrary, Luke was the sole cameraman; the camera was not handed off to anyone else.

[insert quotes describing filming from Luke's comment thread on Joe E Sparks' reaction to Murderer]

The video begins on the rooftop of the Brighton flat Ren once shared with Romain Axisa and Gorran Kendall, then proceeds through Ren's bedroom, down the back staircase, and out onto Stone Street. A BMW driven by a masked pig approaches from the west and picks up Ren and the cameraman. They drive east on Stone Street, turn right onto Castle, then follow that street around another right angle turn to go back west toward the site of the kidnapping at 24 Castle Street.

   (Incidentally, this ambush site next to the skip bin is also the spot in the "Losing It" video where Ren raps the lyrics "Yes my brother, love each other, I'm an agent undercover" into a phone in his hand.)

The pig, played in other videos by Ren's friend Vik, was in this instance played by Jake, the owner of the BMW and the safest one to drive it whilst wearing a mask. The "murder victim" was played by Ren's photographer friend Joe @Flackerzfotos, who also appeared as the tied-up human captive in "Animal Flow".

[To research: Vik may be the weightlifter or the spotter on the roof with Ren at the beginning of the video?]

## Live video

On 11 August 2023, about three weeks after the official video dropped, Ren released a second version of the song, **"Murderer (live acoustic)".**

Ren announced on 7 August that he was in Los Angeles, California, taking a break from health treatments and filming a new music video for a live version of "Murderer".

Ren and local Los Angeles guitarist James Marino perform the song live on acoustic guitars at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, with a vista of the L.A. skyline behind them to the northwest. The intro includes the lyric "out on the streets, they call it murder" from "Welcome to Jamrock", and in the middle of the song, Ren's guitar picks out the melody from the song "The Next Episode" by famed Los Angeles rappers Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.

The live video was filmed in one evening [by who?], edited and mixed for release, then premiered on YouTube four days later. It reached 100,000 views in one day.

## Links

* "Murderer" on YouTube
* "Murderer (Live acoustic video)" on YouTube

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Ren's Brighton map, by Frankc
2. ↑ Ren's YouTube Community post, 7 August 2023