Video Watch #1: RECESSION MUSIC — THE STREETS VS. JEEZY
These days, it’s rare for a music video to capture the zeitgeist of a moment in time, unless we’re talking about superficial cultural markers like, “Oh yeah, I remember when throwback were popular!” Hip-hop videos are great incubators of passing trends in fashion and cars, but all too often the visuals blur forgettably into a homogeneous stream of bottles, booties, and clubs I would never want to go to (I’m playing devil’s advocate a bit, but tune into 106 & Park on any given day and it’s hard to deny).
Within this landscape, you’ve got to pay attention when an artist does something out of the norm. Something topical. And what’s been the one story on everyone’s mind these past few months: the bloody RECESSION. The U.S. housing crisis and credit crunch has had global implications, and things aren’t much better over on the other side of the pond. Let’s take a look at how to two very different artists—Young Jeezy and The Streets—approached this topic in video. Along the way, we can draw some bold generalizations about Americans and British people, and also find an excuse to post an Eddie Izzard clip. Cash back!
The Streets – Everything Is Borrowed
Recessions (and digital downloads) hurt musicians too, so it’s wise for the Mike Skinner to go a little bit low budget here. (Fortunately, that’s his style in general.) The video, which is for the title single off his new album, begins with a shot of a fit girl who looks a bit like Zoe Slater and then unfolds as a rather straightforward repossession story. We see Skinner enjoying the fruits of domesticity (kids, women with no pants, reading on the couch) for one last time while the “enforcers” of the mortgage crisis mobilize to seize the house and all its belongings. The big black repo truck arrives like the grim reaper to take away all the trappings of modern comfort, but Skinner’s message is one of hope: those things can never follow him into death anyway, and so they are unimportant.
Skinner noted in interviews preceding the release of Everything Is Borrowed that he wanted the songs to be like parables, but he also strove to “not reference modern life on any of them…and keep things personal at the same time.” So the video actually serves to give a timely spin to a more general reflection about life, and it lends some gravitas to his somewhat sappy chorus.
The video also works well because of its restraint and faithfulness to Skinner’s style. With his conversational delivery and properly-sized white tee shirt, Skinner seeks to represent the British “Everyman.” And as we all know, the British Everyman lives a bit of a depressing life. There’s no sugar-coating that here, but the song itself mines a silver lining out of what could be a pretty bleak scene. Indeed, even though the girl actually ends up looking fitter than a Slater by the end of the video, the whole thing does have a bit of an Eastenders quality to it—just like a regular of the Old Vic, Skinner confronts personal crisis with a stiff upper lip.
What we learn: Mike Skinner is wise and unmaterialistic. Brits can “take it on the chin.”
Now, let’s come Stateside and check out the Young Jeezy approach…
Young Jeezy – Put On (Directed by Gil Green)
While Skinner is intent on documenting urban life and being a normal bloke, Jeezy is a self-proclaimed “thug motivator.” The ins-and-outs of this philosophy are bound to confuse, but basically he wants to get everyone from cornerboys to Barack Obama pumped up and ready to hustle. This video is all about saying, “Fuck a recession, I will do it big no matter what!”
The opening sequence is far more dramatic than Skinner’s, showing us a single, panning shot through an Atlanta ‘hood vaguely reminiscent of The Wire’s “Hamsterdam” (insofar as there is mad activity occurring in one place). When we finally see Jeezy, he is with a massive crew of dudes in “My President Is Black” tee shirts. A black-and-silver flag would generally seem ominous, but here it represents the hope of a new regime inspired by that good old fashioned thug motivation.
But let’s not get too caught up. Basically, the video is about Jeezy being the man and carrying the streets on his back while Americans struggle through foreclosures and wild gas prices. Notice how you never see Jeezy with the poor people; he is either rolling alone in his whip, rapping atop some inexplicable ruins, or strutting through an abandoned building with women who can still afford to stay extra thick. Images of “tough times” are presented in montage while Jeezy yells about the difficulties of going through security with lots of jewelry. As with The Streets’ video, the visuals shed new light on the song, but in a decidedly less profound way.
The conceit of Yeezy as a motivator/leader (rather than “everymen” in the street) is most clearly articulated when the camera rolls back from the gigantic black-and-silver flag to reveal another camera filming Young Jeezy and broadcasting his message directly to people’s TVs. He has rewritten the rules the tedious “presidential address,” turning it into an in-your-face rap video. That’s change I can believe in! Meanwhile, Kanye rocks a hipster keffiyeh (presumably to display his solidarity with Palestine?) and raps about how people owe him shit. If everything is really borrowed in this world, than Kanye believes it was borrowed from him, so he wants it back (and then some!).
What we learn: Recession or no recession, Young Jeezy puts on for his city and keeps it moving. A black president will help us bounce back, but it’s unclear whether that president will be Obama or Young Jeezy.
So there you have it. As I said, these are two very different artists, and direct comparison is not necessarily fair. But I think it’s interesting the way they both took songs that are not overtly about the recession and then used the music video to give it a topical spin. One video makes me a bit more reflective, while the other gets me more amped to get out, stack paper, and fuel consumer spending. As a dual citizen, I’m in two minds about their respective qualities. Which do you prefer?
Ultimately, I think I probably could have spared you all that babble and let Eddie Izzard explain the fundamental difference between these two videos:
