OUT THE TRUNK

BMM 2023 hip-hop spot for Ford. Tailgate-culture storytelling grounded in Black music history — what lives in the trunk of a car is what lives in the culture.

The 2023 Black Music Month kickoff for Ford — built around the 50th anniversary of hip hop and Ford's long place inside the culture: D-Nice, Funk Master Flex, Kelis, Nelly, Too Short, Kendrick. The Mustang as a lyric, a metaphor, a rite of passage.

The series lived at the intersection of hip hop, animation, and Black creative expression — a moment when Boondocks-style illustration, adult animation, and Disney's Soul / Moon Girl were re-entering mainstream. We used animation as the visual vocabulary because it's underrepresented for Black illustrators and because it matched the cultural moment.

The partnership · DJ Envy

Queens native Raashaun Casey — DJ Envy — as Ford brand ambassador. Host of The Breakfast Club (IHeart, Radio Hall of Fame), Hampton grad, proud Bronco Raptor + Ford GT owner, producer of his own celebrity car show. Connection to Ford was personal before it was professional: his dad loved American muscle, especially Fords. We used that thread to open a relationship Ford could build on past the campaign — into HBCU Homecoming, Revolt World, and beyond.

The framework

Out the Trunk kicked the year off inside a Ford × Black Cultural Moments framework we built: BHM (Feb), BMM (June — this campaign), BBM (August), HBCU Homecoming (Sep–Nov), Holiday (Nov–Dec). Every moment on-brand for Ford, every moment rooted in the community's actual calendar. Passionate. Authentic. Effortless. Purposeful ingenuity.

Fifteen-second cut for social placements.

One of UWG's three wins at the 45th Annual Telly Awards — against a record ~13,000 entries worldwide. UWG announcement →

Creative Director across the series.

Led concept, episode structure, and production oversight. Shaped the voice so each episode could stand alone while the series held together.