Current Video Reviews
Da Back Wudz - “You Gon Love Me”
The Ying Yang Twins - “Wait (The Whisper Song)”
Ludacris - “Pimpin' All Over The World”
Kanye West - “Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)”
Artist: The Back Wudz
Video: “You Gon Love Me“
Director: Brock Lander
Friendly Southern rappers wearing bright primary colors and looking inoffensive. They can A-Town stomp as convincingly as Lil Jon does, but there isn't any menace in their step - instead, they smile at the camera and rhyme out of car windows like rap nerds on a joyride. Brock Lander's clip for “You Gon Love Me” presents the combo as T.I.'s clean-cut cousins, more cute than crunk.
About two-thirds of the video catches them in the parking lot showing off their ride; in the other third, they're in... um, well, they're in the back woods. And what are they doing there? Really nothing more than reasserting their country credibility and all-purpose Southernness - this isn't much of a moonshine party they're throwing. As new generation South Coast g-rappers contrive a gangster lean as smooth as Snoop at his most blunted, Da Back Wudz invert current rap video conventions by acting like total spazzes. Doesn't bother me at all - the song (and it is an excellent pop song) calls for this kind of treatment. Southern rap probably didn't need its own homegrown version of the Pharcyde, but now that it's here, there's no reason to complain.
Check it out for yourself at: http://www.mtv.com/bands/az/da_backwudz/artist.jhtml#
Artist: The Ying Yang Twins
Video: “Wait (The Whisper Song)”
Director:Little X
A sizzling production and clever gimmick (if you haven't heard it yet, the whole song is rapped in hoarse whispers) deserved a great video, and Little X has come through for the Twins, who've heretofore been a crunk afterthought. No more: the raunchiest pop hit in years has been paired with an eye-popping skin flick of a clip that firmly establishes the Atlanta duo as the naughtiest boys in pop music. Now, the rappers themselves aren't sexy at all, and their forty-sizes-too-big suits make them look like mischievous eight year olds who've lucked into a pile of bling. Surprisingly, the video girls aren't too sexy, either - their wide-eyed reactions to the Twins' whispered solicitations are more vaudeville schtick than blue-movie sultry. But that's the Ying Yang Twins for you: they're coarse dudes, and seduction is not their thing. Take an aerial shot of twenty scantily-clad women writhing on black velvet, and gauche or not, you've got yourself a spectacle. The entire spot is shot in high-contrast black and white, and it's remarkably stylish in spite of itself. Best shot: a solitary dancer shaking her ass in the bright headlights of a jet black sportscar.
Check it out for yourself at: http://music.yahoo.com/ar-297727-videos--Ying-Yang-Twins
Artist: Ludicris
Video: “Pimpin'All Over The World“
Director: X
Yes, that's just X, as in Malcolm, or more accurately, as in "the unknown quantity". Hell, I'd be reluctant to give my name too if I'd shot this one. Luda is partially to blame: if you're going to say things like "the best women all reside in Africa", it's a good bet your video director is going to take you seriously and pick up on your cue. So Ludacris is given a tribal warrior shield (no, really) and set loose on the South African savannah, and of course he looks absurd. Luda, who is about as African as Bryant Gumbel, spends the video epitomizing bad tourist behavior - throwing around money, hitting on native women, getting stone bored on safari, and generally acting like he'd much rather be chilling in College Park. Wouldn't you be? There's never been an American video shot in Africa that didn't come off as insulting, and Ludacris wasn't going to break that streak. Now if only MTV Jams would grow a pair and start airing the "Soobax" clip from K'Naan....
Check it out for yourself at: http://music.aol.com/artist/main.adp?artistid=440972#
Artist: Kanye West
Video: “Diamonds(From Sierra Leone)”
Director:Hype Williams
The grand master of having it both ways returns with a video that's meant to be a political statement. Only not really. West may or may not be upset about the valorization of diamonds in rap videos. We can be pretty sure that he and Hype Williams are against the exploitation of child laborers in diamond mines in Sierra Leone, unlike the rest of us, who are firmly in favor of it, I guess.
Williams shows couples - mostly white - blithely exchanging “blood” diamonds and suffering gory consequences. West, too, is haunted by apparitions of African children whose eyes have inexplicably turned black, including one who causes him to crash his James Bond ride into a plate-glass window, and wrinkle his suit in the process. He's not scaling back his own conspicuous consumption, see, but he is feeling anguish about it. West, who is undoubtedly the most “emo“ rapper in history, stalks the streets of Europe in grainy black and white, brooding over the injustice of it all, and stopping from time to time to vogue for the camera. Finally, the Louis Vuitton Don reminds his urban audience to purchase proper diamonds. Okay, Kanye, whatever you say; I'll pick up a six-pack of Pepsi for you while I'm at it.
Check it out for yourself at: http://music.yahoo.com/ar-304131-videos--Kanye-West
Artist:Common
Video:“Go”
Director:Kanye West, MK12, and Convert
My favorite shot in the “Diamonds” video finds Big Bank Kanye in a church, rocking Amadeus-style on two vintage harpsichords. I mean, two? This guy is so thoroughly accessorized that he needs a harpsichord for each hand. One of the things that make West the most interesting figure in rap is his willingness to thoroughly embrace the full range of his own absurd ambitions. Not content with representing himself as Kanye Sebastian Bach, he's also decided that he's a world-class filmmaker, too. And damn me if he hasn't gone and directed the clip of the year - a ridiculously crisp, letterboxed piece of promo-art with more legit grown-up eye candy than the first three episodes of Star Wars combined.
The semi-animated video comes complete with a gorgeous color palette, images that blur and streak from frame to frame, titles borrowed from Seventies magazines, and some of the sexiest shots I've ever seen in a rap video. (Unlike most hip-hop video directors, West seems to know what an actual attractive woman looks like.) West pushes Common to recognize his fear of lesbianism, and manages to force an extremely revealing performance out of the usually expressionless family-values rapper. And while the “Go” clip might conclude with a shot meant to reinforce heterosexual monogamy, the image that sticks is that of Common's girl staring, knowingly, at her real object of desire. Forget the message altogether - it's the rare rapper who'd allow himself to be shown up so decisively in his own video. Common wins points for that alone.
Check it out for yourself at: http://www.common-music.com/downloads/