How Jerry Lorenzo Linked with Hype Williams for ‘Belly’-I…

Sometimes you have to go straight to the source.

So when Jerry Lorenzo was planning the promotional campaign for Fear of God Essentials’ Fall 2025 collection, he knew he wanted something that captured the spirit of the late ’90s—an era defined by a mix of grit, grandiose style, and swagger. No one embodied that better than Hype Williams, the director behind some of the most influential hip-hop videos of the ’90s and 2000s. Williams helped invent a new visual grammar for the genre, turning rap’s commercial boom into high art.

Lorenzo needed Hype. But he actually never met him. So he did what anyone would do at that moment. He hit him on Instagram.

“It was just like a shot in the dark, man. I just shot him a DM. And Hype was like, ‘Man, I’m never really on social, but I randomly checked it’—and he got right back to me,” Lorenzo told Complex. “When he reached back to me, it just felt like the stars were aligning. He immediately understood my intention and desire, and we just started vibing from there.”

That exchange became the origin story for the short film the two created for Fear of God Essentials’ Fall 2025 campaign. The film, which dropped today, stars Swizz Beatz and is soundtracked by the Ruff Ryders street classic “Down Bottom,” a Bronx-meets-New Orleans anthem where Drag-On and Juvenile trade bars over a bouncy horn-driven beat.

The short pays homage to Williams’ cult classic Belly, loosely recreating the living room scene where Nas and DMX’s characters cool off after a heist. The imagery still holds up: blinding bright white walls, Gummo on the TV juxtaposed with high-end artwork on the walls, a blue-lit Kisha upstairs fuming.

“To say the film has legs isn’t really honest. It’s singular. I wasn’t attempting to make a singular work of art—I was just telling a story about me and my friend and how we grew up,” Williams tells Complex. “But it doesn’t go away. It’s going to be a permanent part of this culture, which is crazy to think of.”

In a press release, Lorenzo reflected on Hype’s influence, saying: “What’s important to me about Hype’s work is that the emotion and beauty always match, which is hard to land when you’re telling gritty stories. His work wasn’t just beautiful—it offered a perspective that felt timeless. That’s what we’re always working toward with Fear of God.”

We spoke to Williams and Lorenzo over Zoom about their new campaign, the legacy of Belly, why Hype is a futurist who still avoids AI, and more.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Jerry, tell me what you were trying to convey with the movie?

Jerry Lorenzo: Anytime that I’m pulling from the era that I continually go back to—late ‘80s through the ‘90s up through 2000—I’m pulling from a very specific place. It’s not so much the aesthetic of that time period, but the emotions and the feeling. And so much of that was creatively directed by Hype. From Hype’s music videos to obviously one of the greatest films of that moment that just kind of really put a beautiful perspective on a gritty lifestyle in an honest way. There was something about what he did in that moment that to me is so time transcendent.

I was just like, “man, let me just try and reach out to Hype. I don’t even know if he knows who I am, if he knows about the brand.” It was just like a shot in the dark, man. I just shot him a DM. And Hype was like,”Man, I’m never really on social, but I randomly checked it” and he got right back to me. So I like to think a lot of things that we do are kind of walking inside of a purpose, inside of a plan that’s kind of already been written. And so when he reached back to me, it just felt as if stars were aligning and he understood immediately my intention and desire and we just started vibing from there.

So you hit him on the gram?

Jerry Lorenzo: Slid in his dms. We have a lot of mutual friends, but it’s always kind of weird to be like “Hey man…I’m trying to get in touch with somebody else.” I hate that. So I was like, man, lemme just try and hit him directly and see what could happen.

What’s the first Hype Williams image that you remember seeing?

Jerry Lorenzo: Oh man. It’s Belly.

I think there’s a lot of our stories throughout black culture that are told through lenses that were accustomed to seeing and receiving our stories. And so when you see our story through a new lens you have never been exposed to, that has a different type of impact on you. And so what I saw in that film was just—I just remember not ever really seeing anything like that, and it was about our culture that was not compromised. And it was elevated and beautiful and honest. And yeah, it was just something that causes you to begin to think different about all possibilities from creative to how you go about life.

Hype, do you like revisiting your old work and playing around with it in different formats?

Hype Williams: I have to say no, and I refuse to do it on every occasion except this one. And the reason for that, I got to say is unknown. I’m not social. I’m only on social media just posting what pictures that I love and shit like that. So I think I only checked my dms twice in years and one of the twice I just happen to see Jerry Lorenzo’s name and I had seen that name repeatedly for so long and I just was shocked. And immediately when he said this is what he wanted to do, it was no hesitation. So I knew it had to be something to it because almost every other level I would say no, especially when it comes to this movie. But it just seemed like it made so much sense primarily because of Jerry’s taste level. Everything that I see that he does is brilliant and very high level in terms of the taste that he has. But what I didn’t know until we got to do this project was so much of it comes from music. So I didn’t realize his taste level in music was similar to the taste level he has as a designer. So that’s kind of like Hype elements. Everything that I did visually was in honor of music and it meant to serve the music, and I never thought that way about a creative person in fashion. And then once I saw Jerry’s taste level in music was that same frequency as what he does visually. I’m like, “oh fuck, we’re like kin.”

What do you think is the influence of something like Belly, which is going on 30 years now. Is the movie’s influence something you notice a lot?

Hype Williams: I can’t even believe I’m having this call today because—to say the film has legs isn’t really honest. It’s singular. I wasn’t attempting to make a singular work of art. I was just telling a story about me and my friend and how we grew up. But it really doesn’t go away. It’s going to be a permanent part of this culture, which is crazy to think of. And it’s only my first film.

Jerry, the movie features Swizz Beatz and the song “Down Bottom.” Can you tell me from about those creative decisions, not only Swizz, but that song in particular?

Jerry Lorenzo: Yeah, I mean, I think obviously you look to some of those moments and that’s not the track that you think of. But for me, I’m at Florida A&M University and with track, it just felt like you were listening to a definitive moment that was defining what was to come, And then what came after that was this crazy Swizz era. But that Ruff Ryder’s moment, Swizz’s natural connection to Hype, and that song felt more like the visuals of the film to me than anything. When I first saw that film, I just had these emotions that I never had before. And when I first heard this Drag-on and Swizz Track, I also felt something very similar. And so to me it was like those moments were very definitive of that era for me personally.

Swizz was one of the first to start to bring these sounds together. It just sounded very new. And then you started to get obviously Juvenile on a track with these east coast cats. And for us in the late ‘90s, that was new. This was new hearing all of these coasts come together.

Was Swizz surprised that you picked that song?

Jerry Lorenzo: Yeah. I think him and Hype were both kind of surprised that that was a track and they were both excited about it, for their own personal reasons as well and the stories that they had about what that track meant to them. It was just a really cool experience that just throughout the entire time of editing the piece and collaborating and concepting the piece, I just felt like we were all on the same page.

One thing I love is that Hype blue hue. I’m just curious, what is the origin?

Hype Williams: Remember the iPhone only came out in 2007. So the ‘90s, there was no such thing as digital photography. So everything was done on celluloid. All those music videos from the ‘90s and the late ‘80s all the way through the whole MTV era are shot on actual film. So I had great luck and just had a very great relationship with a good friend of mine who is my brother and who was my partner in most of everything that I did as a cinematographer and as a friend. We walked together on this road to figure visual shit out. And when it came to the film, we took it very seriously. We wanted the image to equal the feeling that I had about making the movie. His name was Malik Sayeed; he’s a very great human being and a good friend.

And we talked a lot about color palette and talked a lot about texture. We spent a lot of time on the look of the film. So the color that you’re describing is something that we talked about for many years just in terms of just how to capture it on negative and have it translate in a way that wasn’t noisy or just irritating. And we would go back to the old black light posters from where we grew up. It was real alchemy, way before anybody had digital anything. So it was really myself and my partner, Malik. We together just spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the mood was for the film and how it relates to the skin of the people that we were filming.

Are you someone who’s all caught up with all the new technology or you like to do things old school?

Hype Williams: I’m a futurist. I don’t pride myself in a lot of things, but I pride myself in really being ahead of the curve. There was another great cinematographer, a friend of mine, his name is Harris Savides, who passed away. He helped me to understand 25 years ago that I needed to be the one to embrace digital. He said, “forget about negative, let me help you.” And he introduced me to the people at Sony when they invented a prototype camera in 99, the very first digital camera before anybody had even talked about digital. And I think the first music video that I shot digitally with it was [Aaliyah’s] “Rock the Boat” video,

I’ll add that, I’m not involved with using AI as a filmmaker because by definition it’s artificial. So there’s no human element involved in it to make people laugh or make people cry. It may look beautiful, but there’s nothing there that connects on the human level yet. So until it gets there, I probably wouldn’t [use it.] Although I’m a futurist, I’m not on board with the artificialness.

Hype, did you feel like Belly was appreciated at its time?

Hype Williams: I do. I have to say it is a great honor to have people care about something that you create no matter what it is. And I got nothing but love from day one from making that film. One of the main moments in the film that we tried to capture with the Fear of God campaign: that film juxtaposed a French photographer, Thierry Le Gouès, shooting African images with the Harmony Korine film Gummo, with some fucking poor white trash kids out of trailer park in middle of nowhere. So it’s kind of like, there’s no rules when you love something, you just kind of put your heart into it. And I have to tell you, man, that’s the reason why I think we’re here still, is the fact that I put so much love into making a thing that had nothing to do with money or any of that stuff that it still stands as a work of art somehow.

The beauty of our culture and how we’re able to enforce it, that’s really what the hype Williams shit is. It is just like taking the stripper and making her the supermodel for the universe to see. And then all of a sudden Versace ran with that and everybody ran with that. But this was my whole era.

Jerry Lorenzo: And to your first question about, “Hey, how do you feel about celebrating your own work?” If someone asked me, “Hey man, I want to see flannel with zippers or something,” I’d be like, “Man, I’m past that.” But if it comes to me from the right perspective, I’m open to it. I think I was extremely concerned about that. It wasn’t so much me having to sell him on it—it was just a conversation, and I’m forever humbled by it. Because Hype could’ve easily been turned off, like, “I’m not on that, bro. You’re still on that? That was just the beginning of my bag, bro.” You never know until you have those conversations.

So for us to be able to say, to understand why now is the time, why it feels right—and for us both to feel that way—that’s really… “reassuring” isn’t even the word. This thing was already written, and I’m just walking in it.