FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

How Otto Knows Made an Adorable Music Video with Yo-Yos and Kimonos

Go behind the scenes of “Next to Me” with the kids who star in it.

You hear Swedish producer Otto Knows, you think yo-yo champion, right? Maybe not, but when Knows (given name: Otto Jettman) saw a video of nine-year-old Kazuya Murata he saw an opportunity to work together.

"I saw a YouTube clip of Kazuya and thought he was a really talented young boy," Knows says. "It's cool to be able to bring another culture that I'm not super familiar with into the video. It made it really exciting for me."

Murata features in the video alongside ten-year-old Mia King, who dances on the opposite side of a screen from where Murata is yo-yoing. Directed by the team of Yuki Yamato and Tsutomu Hirabayashi under the name Bayashiya, the video has racked up over a million views and helped push the song to be one of the most-streamed dance tracks in the world.

Thanks to a little yo-yo champ, "Next to Me" is on track to be a breakout hit for Otto Knows.

Otto Knows on SoundCloud