Friday Video Premier

Every Friday, we're highlighting a specific video (or two, or three) for your end of week enjoyment.

Happy Friday everybody! Sun's out, semester's winding down, Cubbies are winning, and even though the Democratic party is exploding, Cambodia's botching their genocide trials, and the evil Spurs might go through, we just can't help but enjoy the day.

Check out the video below for the JJ Collective's first "Friday Video." It's "Us Placers," by Kanye, Lupe and Pharrell's group Child Rebel Soldiers. They're on the Glow in the Dark tour right now.



There's a couple things I like about the video, even besides the song. If you listen to the lyrics (especially the verses by Lupe and Kanye) you see that the song is mostly about the often pained life of a star.

Lupe's verse lists a star's accoutrement, but ends it with the loaded phrase, "All the money in the world don't make it painless." Kanye says, "I try to keep that balance/ After MTV that’s a Real World Challenge."

The video (which is not official, by the way, it was done by some YouTube director "Vashtie") is poignant because of the use of kids' innocence. The child actors who play CRS are not completely comfortable in front of the camera--you can see "Kanye" often looking away, like Snoop did in his earlier videos--and so they seem to be eschewing the spotlight, which fits the lyrics perfectly.

Plus, the kids in the video are not stars, they're (presumably) not yet corrupted by fame, and so the video is also a kind of wistful realization of CRS' dreams.

What do you think?

I like the song, too, although its sparseness was at first offsetting. There's nothing besides the piano, Thom's wailing, and that hazy electronic percussion that you can find all over Thom's solo album "The Eraser"--but in the end, I was won over by the piano taken straight from the first song on Eraser, "The Eraser," which is below.



I mean, you can see how much CRS leaned on that song.

By the way, The Eraser has some ridiculous album art. (Thank you, Stanley Donwood.)






Photos from amazon.com.

Lupe's New Vid, etc.

First off, I hope all you readers got a chance to see Lupe's new "Paris, Tokyo" video, which he released yesterday. Here's a link.

As I was watching it for the first time, I kept asking myself when it was going to cut to some bedroom scene with all those cute girl-thangs he was meeting in Egypt, Paris, etc.

And I waited, and I waited...and was amazed that though he's enticed by all the local honey he remains faithfully in touch with his main girl back home (sending her postcards and more postcards) and only gives those other girls a friendly hello--or allo.

Eventually there's that super sweet scene with Lupe returning home, and I'm like, "What a guy."

Nah Right also posted a link to this interview Lupe did with the Guardian.

It's a good piece with lots of focus on Lupe's nerdiness, which seems totally blown up to me. I mean I've heard people describe Pharrell, or Kanye, or now Lupe as nerds. This is totally ridiculous. Maybe it's just me, but don't people stop calling each other "cool" or "nerdy" after, I don't know, 8th grade?

The fact is, no one who makes as much money with as much fame or as much creative talent as those guys can ever be called nerdy. Reading comic books makes you nerdy? Caring about shoes makes you nerdy? Hardly.

When I was in high school and there were kids winning all this money for their national science competitions, I was never like, "That kid's a big nerd." I was like, "Man, I wish I got $500 for setting things on fire."

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In other music news, Building JJ co-founder and Music Chair Jhuff alerted me to Pitchfork media's new video site the other day, and it's distracted me from school work ever since.

One warning: their videos are by default on the highest volume level, so if you're wearing headphones (like I was), make sure and turn that volume down lest your brain gets scattered all over the room.

Jhuff said he loved these videos quality--especially the one of Radiohead playing "Bangers and Mash," which is my favorite from CD2 and had me wowing over Thom's drumming--but I'm loving how many different kinds of music are represented.

There's also a video of an interview with Vampire Weekend (another current Jhuff favorite); J Dilla's "Nothing Like This" which is in Jhuff's Elecroslow II; and some Madvillain.

So enjoy some sweet video watching, readers. Speaking of Madvillain, here's my favorite (and real short) song from their album "Madvillainy":

Luda, You Jerk

Let’s talk about Ludacris for a second. The man’s had some serious hits, from Missy Elliot combos to Roll Out to all those on Chicken n Beer. But the oddity of his image (please see Word of Mouf album cover), compounded with rumors of him not writing his lyrics, has made him an eccentric rap star if not a unique one. Of course, he’s also been solidly popular since coming out in 2000.

But recently, the man has straight up split his scrotum.

On one side we see him in “Money Maker,” a big bass sexy time song where the video puts him and Pharrell on top of cash stacks strapped with leggy ladies and lipstick. A good song, to be sure, with a Neptune beat (and bass not far from the “Grindin” classic) and a shallow enough message to top the Billboard charts.

On the other side, we see him in “Runaway Love” featuring Mary J. Blige. In the video, he raps in the background as little girls are, in turn, abused by drunken drug abusing parents, victim to gang violence, and stricken with an unwanted pregnancy. From the beginning, he’s decked out in Common gear, you know, that Black Intellectual fit—Kangol-type hat, lots of khakis and earth tones. A sweater vest here and there.

So here’s the question: recognizing that Ludacris did a nationwide tour to promote AIDS awareness, does this song point to his personal development and newfound wish to change the world? Or is it a sad example of using any means to sell a product? Surely Ludacris realizes the current popularity of the social awareness hue in rap, what with the emergence of Common, Talib Kweli, and Mr. Lif from the underground (where that awareness has never been lacking).

How can an artist have two blatantly contradicting songs out at the same time? How stupid do they think we are?!

Are we seriously expected not to realize that one man can say the following:

It took your momma 9 months to make ya

Might as well shake what your momma gave ya

You, you lookin good in them jeans

I bet you'd look even better with me in between

I keep my mind on my money - money on my mind

But you's a hell of a distraction when you shake your behind…

So feel free to get loose and get carried away

So by tomorrow you forgot what you where saying today

And then follow up with these heart-rendered lines:

Little Erica is eleven years old 

Shes steady tryin to figure why the world is so cold 

So she pops x to get rid of all the pain 

Cause shes havin sex with a boy whos sixteen...

Never thinkin bout the consequences of her actions 

Livin for today and not tomorrows satisfaction 

If these lyrics don't prove how much hypocritical bullshit perpetuates what used to be an art form, I don't know what will.