Music

Fab 5 Freddy loves ‘kinda dope’ Vampire Weekend video with Jerry Seinfeld

Not only does the new Vampire Weekend video “Sunflower” showcase Zabar’s and Barney Greengrass — two Upper West Side institutions — but it features two iconic New Yorkers: Jerry Seinfeld and Fab 5 Freddy.

“That’s kinda dope,” says Freddy (real name: Fred Brathwaite), a hip-hop pioneer who rose to fame as the host of “Yo! MTV Raps” in the late ’80s. “They were telling me, ‘It’s just you and Jerry Seinfeld [doing cameos].’ I’m like, ‘Oh s - - t! . . . That’s like a unique kind of flavor right there.’ I hope Jerry feels the same way.”

Freddy pops up at Zabar’s, while Seinfeld turns up at Barney Greengrass in the Jonah Hill-directed video, which also features Vampire Weekend lead singer Ezra Koenig and the Internet guitarist Steve Lacy. The clip, which may leave your head spinning with its constant twirling, was shot last month — in good part, while customers went about business as usual.

For most of the day shoot at Zabar’s, customers “had access to everything,” says Jonathan Nunez, a manager who was working during filming. “Some were shocked, some were excited, but of course some New Yorkers, like New Yorkers are, were not so excited, you know? . . . Some don’t give a damn.”

At the Barney Greengrass shoot, “it was intermittent lockdown,” says owner Gary Greengrass. “We closed for part of it and were open for other parts of it.”

Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend; Fab 5 Freddy; Jerry Seinfeld
Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend; Fab 5 Freddy; Jerry SeinfeldNicholas Hunt/Getty Images; Shutterstock; Josh Brasted/FilmMagic

Some of the Barney Greengrass customers had a more familiar connection to Hill, who has a home in Manhattan. “Some people knew Jonah personally, not just as a celebrity,” says Greengrass, noting that seeing stars is “just part of the texture when you’re a New Yorker. [People] find it exciting, but at the same time they go about their business.”

Although Greengrass “wasn’t familiar with their music” before, he heard a lot of Vampire Weekend that day — albeit the same tune repeatedly. “It’s a great song,” he says of “Sunflower,” a quirky ditty from VW’s upcoming “Father of the Bride” album. “They were playing it often enough here that day, but you know what, I enjoyed it . . . It had a little Jewish beat to it.”

Nunez, though, was less impressed. “I thought it was OK — it was nothing out of this world,” he says.

But the food at Zabar’s went over much better with the video crew: “They had whatever they wanted . . . tuna salad sandwiches, Nova [salmon], babka,” says Nunez. “Some of them took things home.”

Seinfeld has picked up plenty of to-go orders from Barney Greengrass. “He’ll come in and eat or take something to go, or we’ll [deliver] it over to him,” says Greengrass. “Jerry eats it all. He loves Nova, eggs and onions.”

Freddy got involved with the “Sunflower” shoot because Mikey Alfred — who he calls his nephew — is the video producer, and he’s a fan of both Zabar’s and Barney Greengrass.

“I live in Harlem, which is not far from there, so sometimes I come down,” says Freddy. “If you want that really good Nova, that really good lox . . . you gotta go to places like that that have the top of the line.”