We See Things Differently…
Comparing J. Cole’s Roll-Out Video to De La’s
My Childish Gambino listening session was interrupted.
I was enjoying the Parliament/Funkadelic laced greatness of “Awaken, My Love,” scrolling Twitter to see if anyone was talking about the album and stumbled upon the announcement of J. Cole’s promotional video on Pigeons & Planes.
I’on’t have Tidal so I figured that if this is up now, might as well jump at the opportunity — might not play in the morning and I’m already struggling to stay a part of the dark side of streaming — I’m not switching or adding a service.
Click ‘Play’ or the symbol that represents it rather and immediately go, “huh?”
We see a door…hear some background noise…and in a LONG SHOT J. Cole walks in and OUT OF FRAME.
To a person raised on cinematic narrative, it’s jarring. But it wasn’t the first time I saw this. I had a similar experience with Travis Scott’s 19 minute Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight promotion, La Flame.
But watching J. Cole’s jawn confirms it — we don’t just hear things differently, we see things differently as well.
I’m sure I’ve expressed my excitement about De La’s return enough.
And, since we have that out of the way, we can continue on.
Same day as the release of and the Anonymous Nobody De La Soul blessed their fans with a 33 minute promotional video, We’re Still Here Now.
After the titles, we open on a CLOSE UP of Posdnous, deep in thought accompanied by a recorded interview with Harry Allen. This interview and others provide the structural backbone of the video. So, while the images may cut between concerts, listening parties, bus rides, etc., the interviews give the project form.
In this first interview, Harry Allen asks De La to tell him what the project is about. The answer to that question plays behind several images.
And while there’s no straightforward narrative in the traditional sense, this approach is still very structured. When we next see De La sitting in with Ed Lover, he asks questions about the funding process, their answers lead to images of a listening party and next a meeting where they’re giving an update on the project.
Key players are named with their titles and they discuss their role in the process. Howard Cho, the Campaign Manager ruminates on the Kickstarter drive and listening party. Brandon Hixon, Marketing Manager, speaks on the reality of needing a Distributor.
They say something, we see it. That’s common documentary structure. De La talks about travel — we see them traveling.
So, no matter how it’s cut, or how the images are FRAMED (and most people are still framed head-on), we still have a pretty conventional documentary/promotional piece.
All that is thrown out the window when it comes to J. Cole’s piece.
Looking at that video, and maybe because I’m looking on my regular sized iPhone 7 screen (as opposed to the big ass screens most people have in their pockets now), I can’t tell who’s who.
Someone is playing a violin RIGHT OF FRAME, framed the same way is another woman doing the same. I happened to know what Theo Croker looks like, he’s pretty distinguishable, but we mostly see the BACK of his head. We rarely see anyone’s face.
Not shooting anyone HEAD ON and having most people in LONG SHOTS keeps the viewer at a distance all the while DRAWING THEM IN. Not being able to see a face drives the viewer to ask questions? Who is this? Where are they? What is the context of this shot?
Those questions, of course, were asked to the extreme when Frank Ocean put out his promotion/project of what, I’m still not sure, him building stairs? Dunno. Whatever the case, the viewer was denied any CLOSE UP shots in that video and no narrative was provided.
I think La Flame assumes that you might ask those questions but the way that they cut from one concert to the next, one flight to the next, one stripper to the next, makes me think that the intent was to show viewers that each place, each person, each blunt blends into the next.
J. Cole’s video, like Frank’s and Travis’ names no one. We just see people behind the boards. People playing instruments. Hands moving and voices in discussion.
There is, however, a tad bit of narrative. In a car ride, J. Cole discusses how the project could be possibly rolled out and later he talks about seizing the opportunity of having a hit record. Other than that…you’re on your own.
What all of these pieces have in common is that it’s a preview to the artist’s music, although it’s handled quite differently in each one.
Last year leading up to Malibu, Anderson .Paak had weekly videos where we saw him throughout the process of creating the album, some songs stayed exactly the same. But, like Travis, Frank, and Cole, there was no straightforward narrative to any of these videos.
We HEAR different songs developing in the background, but never any completed pieces in J. Cole’s promotional video so there’s no payoff like there is in We’re Still Here Now. We SEE and HEAR the development of “Lord Intended” from De La looking for an artist to sing over a bridge, to the file being opened, and the end result with Justin Hawkins verse being included.
Of course, part of the reason for this is because De La’s promotional piece was released while the music was already out and Cole’s isn’t out until next week. But the fact remains — J. Cole’s director and editor (who knows who did either) trusts the audience enough to believe that they can sit through 40 minutes of mystery.
Perhaps they can do that because the piece is bookended by two…”videos.” Two songs are played with J.Cole rapping the verses with a synched track, that’s what I’m calling videos. The first one is just Cole spitting. The entire thing is done from the back of a pick-up. I dig the whole spraying MCs analogy — yet another take on Rakim’s Seven MC bit.
The second song, which actually has a hook that leads me to believe the song is called “False Prophets,” is more conventional with different scenes, hooks (like I just said), etc. Sounds like he’s coming at Kanye…putting him in the same plane as Drake getting at the struggling Cudi…we’ll see what the reaction is.
I watched all forty minutes because the same way my musical palette has expanded, my visual one has as well. But I did have to ask myself the question, “how exactly are they (the younger generation) seeing things?”
Are regular narratives considered boring? Have we all seen the same stories told so many times that we no longer care about stories? That certainly might explain the lack of stories in most contemporary music. But do we see the world entirely different?
These videos lead me to believe we do. Or…I could just be seeing some shit that way because it’s late at night/early in the morning. I think it’s the former, but what do I know?
