I
grew up in a time where the music video was one of the most important ways
artists promoted their albums. The game has changed a bit and artists don’t
concentrate as much as they used to on their videos. Even more sparingly, are
the videos that actually pull from national news and/or social issues. I have
noticed a slight change with newer artists like Kendrick Lamar attempting to
bring this practice back to the art. Earlier this week, Roc Nation rapper, J.
Cole released the video to his latest single “Crooked
Smile,” from his “Born Sinner” album.
Video Overview (Spoilers Included)
The
video does a great job of story telling. Unlike most videos we see
now, the song almost takes a backseat to the story that’s being told. We have
two men, J. Cole and a police officer, going about their, what seems to be, a
normal day. J. Cole’s character is up early, cleaning his house, mowing the
lawn and preparing for a birthday dinner for his young daughter. On the other
side of town, you have the police officer, eating breakfast, interacting with
his young daughter at breakfast and preparing for his tough job as a police
officer, in what looks like a special task force. If you blink, you’ll miss a
short scene, where J. Cole’s character pulls out a small bag of drugs from one
of his shoes in a closet, suggesting that his profession is a little less legal
than the officer’s.
Then, you J. Cole’s character home is raided for drugs, and
as he’s being apprehended, his daughter is accidently shot and killed by one of
the police officers (not the main character). Then, you see flashback scenes of
J. Cole’s character’s daughter and the police officer’s daughter drawing
together in school, suggesting that they were more alike than may have
originally been thought. At the end of the video there are two significant
statements: “For Aiyana Stanely-Jones,” and “…And Please Reconsider Your War on
Drugs.”
For
those not familiar with the Aiyana Stanely-Jones story click here to be informed. A mistrial was
issued in her case when she was shot and killed by a police officer during a
raid of her home. They were looking for a suspect in a murder that had happened
days before and the TV show “The First 48” was filming them as well. It was
later found out that the police raided the wrong apartment and the person they
were looking for actually lived in the unit above the one Aiyana was killed in.
J. Cole and video director Sheldon Candis used this story as the main backdrop
for the video. I love this because it did a few things:
1. It drew inspiration from a true story that
did not receive much media attention.
2. It used art as a way of honoring Aiyana’s
young life that was taken senselessly.
3. This is what quality music
inspires TRUE artists to do. It inspires them to create work that has a purpose
and is thought provoking.
JJ.
Cole and Director Sheldon Candis get an A+ from me for this video. The song
itself is one of the breaths of fresh air in terms of hip-hop music right now:
a positive song that gives off positive energy. They could have easily gone the
easy route and made a video that went directly with the song. Instead they
pushed themselves creatively and created something that is both thought
provoking, controversial but most importantly exceptionally done.
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