The director (Dave Chappelle? Who?) should get an award; the concept is amazingly well-executed and thought-out.
This is why this video and song are mind-blowing and I think deserve special note:
1) Throwback to early- to mid-1980s black pop videos. When I was a young white kid and hadn't yet learned I wasn't supposed to like black artists, I watched and liked a lot of mainstream-y black pop from folks like Michael Jackson, Prince, but even less-remembered, Morris Day & the Time, Apollonia, Klymaxx, Pointer Sisters, etc. A lot of Prince videos began as this Snoop vid does -- the master arising from a smoky backdrop as lush, vintage synthesizer sounds announcing the arrival of a heavenly Romantic Poet into our midst.
This is the kind of video I'm talking about: Klymaxx's "Meeting in the Ladies Room" from 1984 or so: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_l9URYzUbF4
It seems obvious Snoop is taking the piss but also recalling this era.
2) Snoop is using a keyboard "guitar," totally old school (a keyboard slung over the shoulder and held like a guitar) -- and is dressed in gaudily "classy" clothing. He makes the most of his mullet and is surrounded by women with big, 80s crimped hair who're wearing 80s-style lingerie. He even has women in lingerie playing keyboards, wearing police hats -- exactly like Prince, circa his "1999" video.
3) Snoop Dog named this song "Sensual Seduction" -- over the top. And the song is maybe only 15% hip hop, at the end. Otherwise it's a pastiche of early 80s "romantic" black pop, heavy old Stevie Wonder vibe. Snoop Dog is known for being thuggish, uncouth, even threatening. In other words, not at all like Prince, or Stevie Wonder, or someone who'd make a vid like this -- Prince has a kind of "classy" reputation in his own odd, self-created own way. Snoop seems to be playing on this, mocking the old "classy/romantic" ("When the Doves Cry") videos.
4) The lyrics to the song include these lines: "We gonna go out to the mall / Then we gonna go out to eat [...] / We gonna smoke us a cigarette / And then we'll go back to sleep." As well as: "I'm gonna take it slow / I'm not gonna rush the strokes / So she can get a / Sensual seduction." Gonna go out to the mall, then get something to eat? Going to smoke a cigarette and fall back asleep? HAHA.
5) Snoop Dog is using a vocoder for his vocal effects, a dated sounding technique that hardly anyone uses now. This makes him sound more like Stevie Wonder in this video, a la Stevie Wonder's old hit "I Just Called to Say I Love You."
6) The MASTERSTROKE: The video is MADE to look as if it was taped off MTV, or some old video show like "Friday Night Videos" -- made to look as if it is being viewed on an old, grainy, recently-rediscovered VHS tape. Whoever came up with this idea -- genius. In this current world of HD DVDs, flat panel and flat screen TVs, iPod video devices, intentionally making a video that is grainy and VHS-looking is kinda a big "FUCK YOU." And it's so well-done! It really looks like it was transferred off a video tape. The "PLAY" at the beginning and waviness in the picture are intentional. It ends like a VHS player getting shut off.
7) Snoop seems wise to the gimmick and is playing it so straight it's unbelievable. He needs a medal for that. He is swaying softly around with his shoulder strapped keyboard, the poetic mist cradling him. One expects to see doves come flying through in slow motion at any second.
8) Bonus: This video is confusing the fuck out of Snoop's fans. Many don't seem to understand what is going on. A lot of them are taking it at face value and think it is a horribly tacky misstep. They're wrong. It's fucking brilliant, and Snoop and esp. the director of this vid know exactly what they're doing.
-B.
berber carpet bomb wrote:
"I guess this is a sign that I'm getting old and out of it. I'm not clear on why you're stoked. I'd expected some political slam on bush or the war or a combo. are you just digging the early 80s MTV vibe?"