It takes a village to make a music video, Chris “London Homicide” Bowerbank learned this summer. But that doesn’t mean the villagers are always supportive.

“I wanted to drop a track about overcoming obstacles,” Bowerbank, 21, told AnnArbor.com, and in two unauthorized filming sessions at local Meijer, art imitated life.

"Triumph" features the stylings of Chris "London Homicide" Bowerbank, Kyle "General Population" Hunter, and Charles "Cheeks" Cheek, all grads of Ann Arbor Huron.

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

“Our big mistake was waiting until we got inside to plan the shot,” said Kyle “G.P.” Hunter, who is featured in the video. “We were at the Meijer on Carpenter Road,” started filming at the back, and by the time we got to the front we had been asked to leave. We didn’t have any kind of permits or anything.”

Off to the Meijer on Ann Arbor-Saline Road. This time Bowerbank and company did a little better, planning the shoot in the parking lot.

“We knew we basically had one shot at it, so we shot from the front of the store to the back and got the heck out of there,” Bowerbank recalled. “That boom box in the video was really playing music - we had to be able to meet our cues.”

But the video wasn’t just a triumph of ingenuity and selective rule-breaking; it was a win for collaboration, a product of Huron High grads trying to find their way, artistically.

Bowerbank and Hunter went back to Scarlett Middle School, but recently re-connected on the musical tip. Bowerbank also knew director Alex Gao from Huron, and even though Cheek has a few years on the others, he was a River Rat in his day, too.

Supporters of the local youth-arts scene will notice a few other faces in the video: Jacoby Simmons, a.k.a. DJ Cataclysmic, kicks off the track, while breakdancer Sander “Cast” Bregman, who leads the Neutral Zone’s B-Boy Workshop, contributes some breakdancing in the Meijer scene. Ballet dancer Anjana Kumar’s graceful movements threaten to steal the whole video, and even 15-year-old MC Isaac “Gameboi” Castor makes a brief cameo.

“This was a great Ann Arbor collaboration,” Bowerbank said.

Without further adieu, AnnArbor.com presents the world premiere of "Triumph." This track and the rest of the "The Labyrinth" album can be found at London Homicide's Bandcamp page.

London Homicide - Triumph (Clean) from A. Gao on Vimeo.

James David Dickson can be reached at JamesDickson@AnnArbor.com.