Black Diaspora: Cinematic Music
In an industry that regularly allows the appropriation and dispossession of black art, how do black artists use film to maintain creative control of their expression?
With the unprecedented marriage of music and visuals that threaded throughout the 80’s and the 90’s like the iconoclastic ‘Thriller’ and ‘Purple Rain’. Prince, himself also faced disrupts with Warner Bros resulting an infamous name change and later penning “SLAVE” on his cheek. In tandem with the societal issues in film as well, Spike Lee’s ‘Do The Right Thing’ stimulated conversation around police brutality in America whilst Isaac Julien’s ‘Young Soul Rebels’ opened disclosure in homophobia and racism during 1990’s Britain. Using the visual aspect of framing, lighting and scenery to express themselves without worrying about market sales or radio plays; it was only a matter of time before black artists realise the correlation and the emancipation that cinema had to offer them.
Kevin Abstract is blurring the line between rap music and cinema as a starry-eyed millennial misfit. The invention of Helmet Boy is first seen in ‘Empty’ in a world of walls splattered with posters, reminiscent of Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Boogie Nights.’ In the video, Helmet Boy is seen receiving oral sex from his fling: Summer. Dialogue is scarce in the video and a creepy sensation of ennui materialises as Abstract pins down the locus of teenage desire: boys being in rooms that they shouldn’t really be in. The sense of ennui also creeps again in ‘Runner’ where Helmet Boy is shot in a van, gallivanting with his friends and the symbol of how Helmet Boy is used as a scapegoat is chilling because even in his own fabricated world; he is met with a warm bullet piercing through him.
“I always remember liking the way movies looked and how they made me feel when I was a kid… When I was younger, anytime I saw a cool black dude, I wanted to be just like them.” — Kevin Abstract
“Gallons is the kind of record I want played very loudly at my funeral. It’s how I feel every time I see my brothers get stopped and searched or when I hear about another person of colour amount to nothing more than commemorative hashtag. [I]t’s a celebration of struggle. “ — Kojey Radical
Beyonce’s vision thwarted the anger of White America. ‘Lemonade’ came as a shock to those who boxed Beyonce as a typical celebrity who used her money as a shield against the tensions bubbling in America. Beyonce is an aesthetician for the evocative in ‘Formation’ as an establishing shot sets us in the submerged New Orleans and Beyonce squatting onto of a drowning police-car. Beyonce proudly declares her roots, brimming full of Americanisms; Dapper Dan, hot pepper sauce, Black hair shops, impassioned church-goers and combines it with America’s haunting past. ‘Formation’ takes aim at America’s turn-of-the-head during Hurricane Katrina and as well as its past with the use of Southern Gothic Plantation houses that are also scattered through the ‘Lemonade’ film. Beyonce solidifies her pride by having an arresting cast of black women: Zendaya, Amandla Stanberg, Serena Williams all look at us graciously. Their stares, pumped with vitality and purpose reverses the sexual objectification women face in music videos on top of its head.
But this affection with the camera is not only an American sensation, this is also carried out across the pond; Kojey Radical, Denzel Himself and 808INK use the camera as a peep-hole into their state of mind. Radical’s ‘Gallons’ is not only an invitation to his low-key, dark-toned world where gangsters and mythical creatures coexist. Brutalist settings with disorientating shots that lead us to a cinematic London but also to a London that constantly battles with the psyche of young black men.
With the way black people are presented irl and url, it’s why the relationship between cinema and music is stronger than ever now. With Kanye West’s exploration of the surreal with ‘Runaway,’ Sampha’s eye-latching ‘Process’ or Childish Gambino’s cryptic ‘Clapping for the Wrong Reasons. Black artists are now behind the camera and front of it now, gaining autonomy of their creation(s), preventing sensationalised consumption in a fickle industry.
