The music video for hip hop artist Fetty Wap’s pro-pot anthem “Wake Up”—which was filmed at his former high school in New Jersey—has landed the school’s principal in hot water.
The video, released late May, contains “numerous drug references” and other not school-friendly content like a stripper dancing on a pole inside a classroom, and banners that read “Go Team Kush.” After parents at Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey complained, principal Zatiti Moody was placed on paid leave while the school district investigates how the video was allowed to be filmed at the school, said Superintendent Donnie Evans at a school board meeting last week.
“Based on preliminary reports with regards to this video, which has been confirmed as having taken place in the school building, it has been decided that the principal of operations has been placed on administrative leave with pay until the investigation has been completed,” said Evans.
Fetty Wap, whose real name is Willie Maxwell, was a former student at Eastside High. “I went back to my old high school to shoot this video,” he says in a message at the beginning of the music video. “A nobody, high school dropout now known worldwide as Fetty Wap. Celebrate every day, roll something up and define your own path.”
The song’s hook “Let’s get Wiz Khalifa high/Get meditated over medicated” is a nod to rapper and famous pothead, Wiz Khalifa. At one point, a woman playing the role of a teacher takes an apple from her desk and uses it as a bong.
“The district does not endorse the content of this video,” said a spokeswoman for the school district, Terry Corallo, after it confirmed last week that “Wake Up” was filmed at the school.
Many parents criticized school officials for allowing it to be filmed at Eastside High, especially given that the school district recently recorded a 70% rise in positive drug test results among students, many of them for marijuana. “Eastside High School has to face this everyday, teachers and staff fight this everyday,” said Eastside parent Valerie Freeman at the school board meeting. “It defeats the purpose if we turn around with a video of this nature.”
