Action Bronson featuring Chance The Rapper “Baby Blue”
Action Bronson and Chance The Rapper have come together to make the song “Baby Blue”. The video for it is an homage to Eddie Murphy’s 1988 classic Coming to America. The video begins with a barber shop scene where the men are talking modern day boxing. The brunt of the conversation is who will win the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. Action Bronson plays the barber, himself, and a Jewish man in this scene. It’s funny, and makes the video well worth watching on its own. But they go on to other great scenes in McBronson’s as well as the concert for Albanian Awareness Week. Well played Action Bronson.
J.Cole “G.O.M.D.”
J. Cole’s latest video for “G.O.M.D.” goes back in time. J. plays a slave who is the authority figure of his master’s house. While the master and his son like to torment the slaves, J. can’t get any respect from the slaves. They look at him like he’s one of the white folk. The women don’t like him, while they faun over the men who work outside. The men don’t give him kind looks either. That all changes when the keys to the gun safe are dropped. J. picks them up without any notice, save for the young white daughter. She appears to like J. and is all for him getting the guns and revolting. She catches them upstairs grabbing the rifles and distract her brother or perhaps he’s her fiance. I’m not quite sure. J. hands out the weapons and now he’s everybody’s favorite person. They take over the plantation and celebrate into the night when four white men come riding up on horses. I have to say, this isn’t the normal thought when you go into a rap video. I mean, there are plenty of pricey fine things in this video, but there isn’t the drinking, drug use, or general exploitative female dancing. And honestly, if a slave never thought the words “get off my dick”, then I don’t know who really should utter those words.
Ed Sheeran featuring Rudimental “Bloodstream”
Ed Sheeran and Rudimental collaborated together on the track “Bloodstream”. This video features Ray Liotta, and I don’t know why, but I am a little concerned for Ray. I may mistaking myself when I say this, but I feel that of late the only time I see Ray he’s playing a sad, life crisis roll. In this video he’s an aged rock star who was quite successful. He’s got a wonderful mansion with a sweet swimming pool. He’s got tons of food and loads of great memorabilia. Yet, he’s sad. There are several scenes where this character drops a tear. There are also others where he’s drunk. Sometimes he just stumbling out by the pool. Other times he has a house full of women all partying with him, while he’s in his robe, and he seems to be happier than ever. But then they leave, and he hops on his horse and rides through the house drinking until he falls asleep atop the horse. In the end, he jumps off a balcony into water, and we don’t really know if he makes it. I know Ray is an actor, but the scenes where he cried I couldn’t help but wonder what was his motivation to drop a tear. Crying isn’t so hard, but crying on command is.
Kygo featuring Parson James “Stole the Show”
Kygo and Parson James worked together on “Stole the Show”. The video follows the story of an extraterrestrial crashing onto Earth. This E.T. makes his way to a house party on Halloween, or maybe it’s just a costume party. Anyways, he’s dressed much like one of our astronauts, and upon entering the party is handed a tiny astronaut figure by a woman. He makes his rounds through the house, at one point standing in a room where we can see a second crash off in the distance through a window. His helmet starts light up across his visor, and a device on his back lights up. He goes back downstairs where he starts dancing until he collapses. The female enters, dressed as an astronaut as well, and begins to dance towards him. I do wish there was more dancing, but as they embrace their visors and backs begin to light up. As the F.B.I. or whatever organization comes to seize them, the two E.T.’s fire up through the roof and off into space. They quite literally stole the show at this party. The visuals are neat, and though Daft Punk originated the fancy helmets with LED light up visors, I wish I had on of my own.
Karmin “Along the Road”
Karmin have been undergoing some changes. Amy Heidemann’s hair is back to brunette, without highlights or frosted tips, it seems. More importantly they’re back to the independent circuit. Their amicable split from Epic Records let’s them control their sound more, and what we’ll be getting is a new album around the fall called Leo Rising. The video for “Along the Road” was self made featuring Nick, Amy, and a guitarist on a stage they made themselves. They have take shoes, dyed them different colors, and created a collage the looks like sun shining behind and a rainbow. There are plenty of other shoes in the video, and the great thing is they’re all going to charity. The backdrop itself will be donated to Saint Mary’s Children’s Hospital in New York City. Also, if you tweet the band a guess as to how many shoes are in the video you could win a $200 gift certificate from Creative Recreation, but you have to guess right.
Run the Jewels featuring Zack de la Rocha “Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)”
Run The Jewels featuring Zack de la Rocha “Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)” was Surviving the Golden Age’s track of 2015. This week, they dropped a video for it. Given all the problems with black youths being killed by white police officers, that’s where I initially thought this video was headed. A white police officer and a black man start out trying to catch their breath in the middle of the street. Both already show signs of fighting. They go at it again. As the fight continued on it looked more and more to me like a domestic fight, as in a domestic violence fight. The two grapple and shove each other. They fight to get to a set of handcuffs that are knocked out of the officers hands. The black man reaches for the mace at one point, and winds up spraying himself as well as the officer in the face. There is a break as the man goes inside and grabs milk to pour on his face. The officer follows, grabs the milk as well, and the two start fighting inside. All the while, from start to finish, we have moments where the fighting stops and two foreheads are pressed together. There’s a kick on the stairs to create space that sends the officer into a wall knocking over pictures. The black man goes upstairs and sits on the bed facing the window with his head down. The officer follows, sits on the opposite side facing away, with his head down. They’re both exhausted, physically and mentally. It looks just like a couple fighting. Interesting to ponder.
