Originally from London, UK, LTtheMonk had an eclectic musical upbringing that set him off on a journey to becoming a musician himself. Dance is also an intrinsic part of LT‘s toolkit, with bantamweight Gene Kelly-meets-James Brown footwork and immaculate sport socks both indelible signatures of his persona as an entertainer. Melding all of his influences, LT aims to fuse dance music with hip-hop and pop, to create his own unique sound.

LT was listening to a podcast series about the “Cola Wars” of the 70s and 80s between Coca Cola and Pepsi, and it made him think about being in a relationship where you’re considered a “power couple.” In a lot of situations, ego might destroy the relationship, if one person is being given more attention, or achieving more success than the other.

With all that in mind, LT wrote “Pepsi Challenge” with Coke and Pepsi being a cheeky metaphor for the power couple, and how you can compete with each other, or work together and be a way stronger partnership.

1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically? 

‘Pepsi Challenge’ was inspired by the Cola Wars of the 70s and 80s, when Pepsi & Coca-Cola were competing to be the number 1 soda in North America, and invented great advertising campaigns like the Pepsi Challenge to try and win. I loved all the vintage Pepsi & Coke commercials that I was watching while I was writing the song (and a lot of the lyrics are references to those commercials), and thought it would be a great song to shoot a video for, to take the Hollywood style of all of those ads and add my own colours and styles to them. And of course, inventing my own Monk Pop and Uptonic sodas for our own Pepsi Challenge!

2.What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)? 

I wanted to take the inspiration of classic Pepsi & Coca-Cola advertising, but bring it into my own new Monk style. So in the video’s storyline, my challenger Kiara Taylor (who also provided background vocals on the song) and I are having contestants take the Pepsi Challenge, but with our own Monk Pop & Uptonic sodas instead of Pepsi and Coke. We compete with the sodas, mix them into alcoholic cocktails, all different challenges to see which soda is number 1.

3.What was the process of making this video?

This video was so fun to make! My director Matt Azzarello and I had our treatment ready, and we brought in Kiara as my ‘challenger’, and a few friends to take the Challenge with us. We went to Urban Queens Beauty Bar in Toronto to shoot the video, which was a perfect backdrop while we spent the day drinking a lot of Monk Pop, Uptonic, Coke & Pepsi, and enjoying the laughter and competition amongst friends!