Video Of The Week: DJ Khaled Featuring Jay Z & Future

I didn't know of DJ Khaled until I saw the one episode of Hot Takes where he totally chickened out and couldn't eat hot wings; I thought he had a pretty big ego for someone whom I'd never heard of and had gone to high school with Joey Fatone of N*Sync.

I'm not saying he's living up to it, but at least his song I Got The Keys, which features rappers Future and Jay Z and whose music was produced and created by Southside, Jake One and G Coop (which really makes you wonder what the fuck Khaled Khaled did on the fucking track to begin with), is somewhat decent.

It was directed in black and white by Daniel Kaufman and features Khaled, Jay Z, and Future, as well as cameos by Busta Rhymes, Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, Pusha T, ASAP Ferg, T.I., Swizz Beatz, Fabolous, Yo Gotti, Bryson Tiller and Zoey Dollaz, all playing prison inmates, with fully-armed/borderline military black ops white guys playing the guards:


The racial tension is intense, reflecting the shit going on on American streets, but Jigga rapping how he's still a slave when his marriage with Beyoncé makes his daughter the heiress to a billion-dollar empire is a tad laughable. And the same can be said for Ross - a former correctional officer - and Khaled himself, who grew up in an upper-middle-class/rich family and neighbourhood.

Video Of The Week: Beyoncé

So, uh... Beyoncé's Lemonade has caused quite a stir, eh?

While she hasn't yet released any individual videos yet, there are three songs that deal with infidelity, which of course the media treats as the main story line (not empowerment, which comes through in every fucking song) and most of the official coverage has been about Jay-Z's alleged infidelities.

Which of course got me thinking about Drunk In Love, when Bey wanted to ride Jigga's wooden surfboard and get drunk, and the black-and-white video, directed by Hype Williams, is a great watch:

I hate to agree with Kanye West, but Queen Bey still reigns in the pop game. She just rules this current decade, both in the quality of her output and artistic merit - and that's saying nothing of her business savvy; this is, after all, the second straight time she releases a #1 record without either any publicity or even announcing it firsthand.

By the way, she released Lemonade on Tidal first, Jay-Z's music service. Why would she do that if she really did have beef with him? Pundits should let art be art and only analyse it in the end.

Video Of The Week: Beyoncé

In a reaction similar to that of her album release in December, Beyoncé's ''latest'' video (though technically, all of them are available since December 13th on the DVD accompanying her CD, and there is one for each track) is just about all anyone was talking about this week, so I kind of had no choice but to feature it...

Both more obvious and more subtle than the previous release (Drunk In Love), this video shows Beyoncé trying to get her husband's attention to have her sexual needs fulfilled, something pretty much the rest of the world would volunteer for, even if she wasn't wearing the lingerie that permeates the clip.

The song was produced by Timbaland, Jerome Harmon, Justin Timberlake, Key Wane, Dean, newcomer Boots, and Beyoncé herself (yeah, a minimalist beat requires a lot of highly-paid talent to make), while the video was directed by British specialist Jake Nava, who has worked with her before, but also with Roni Size (Dirty Beats), The Rolling Stones (Streets Of Love), Adele (Someone Like You), Britney Spears (the Bobby Brown cover My Prerogative) and System Of A Down (B.Y.O.B.).

His work with Beyoncé includes Crazy In Love (featuring Jay-Z), Beautiful Liar (featuring Shakira), Naughty Girl, Baby Boy (featuring Sean Paul) and of course Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It), the one that Kanye West will let you finish but has to say is one of the best videos of all time.

Partition, like the record it's from, deals with sexuality, empowerment through control of your actions, and has both a thumping and clear mass-ready beat as well as experimental undertones, pretty much the kind of achievement Kanye dreams of (and thinks he has achieved many times over), but with a basis in fact.

This may be the best and most innovative pop record of the past 20 years, definitely of the past decade. With Madonna long in her back pocket, Beyoncé can now set her sights on reaching Michael Jackson-like levels of achievements and success. She has the drive and talent for it, that's for sure.

If she could only stop lip-synching the national anthem...

Superb Parody

I'll give you a choice today, between watching this parody of Jay-Z & Alicia Keys' Empire State Of Mind referring to Newark rather than New York, either as a stand-alone piece of art:



... or through a side-by-side comparison with the original:



The verdict?

Epic Win. A+

Video Of The (Past) Week: Jay-Z

During my time in the hospital at the beginning of the month, the only entertainment I had was the music in my smart phone and a few books friends brought me, and while there was little opportunity to sleep, the clock in front of my eyes was showing me every single second that was passing by, which almost drove me insane.

Needless to say, my go-to move was to put on my headphones, close my eyes, and escape to the sounds of the 1000+ songs in my phone, five of which were by Jay-Z; I was never a huge ''Jayhova'' fan, but for two weeks, I didn't skip his songs even once, and this one, with its sample of The Jackson 5's I Want You Back and the laid-back production of Kanye West (yes, I said it!) was often found to be repeated.

Watch for cameos by Nelly, Eve, Destiny's Child (I guess he had an eye on Beyoncé early on!), Outkast, LL Cool J and Kanye West, and enjoy the sight of Jay-Z in New York Knicks apparel, which you'll never see again now that he owns the Brooklyn Nets!

Video Of The Week: Jay-Z And Kanye West (Watch The Throne)

For the third week in a row, I'm caught leaving Jon Spencer on the backburner for something that's more ''in the moment''...

In this case, the lead-off single from Watch The Throne, the Jay-Z and Kanye West monster that I still can't listen to in one sitting but does manage to have stand-out tracks you can listen to on the shuffle mode of your favourite music player.

This video for No Church In The Wild was directed by French film director Romain Gavras and depicts riot scenes (pitting protestors against police officers) which have been a mainstay of the past 3+ months in my city, Montréal - which had its 40th consecutive all-night protest last night, its 111th consecutive ''daytime'' protests of an ongoing student strike and general discontent for our provincial government - as well as countless others around the world.

I don 't know if things will change; oftentimes, when a glimmer of hope makes it through the cloud of bullshit that has plagued human history so far, the Powers That Be have either struck down harder or gotten to make The Oppressed believe they are the inevitable link to their security (see: France, May 1968). Rarely have The People bettered their situation for a ''long run'' (say close to a century).

Sometimes The Bullies are replaced by similar assholes (see: Egypt, right now), a weaker link/puppet (Afghanistan 2003-present), visionaries with their hands tied (Barack Obama).

But more than ever, with 6.8 billion people on the planet and the ''1%'' owning all of it being closer to ''0.0001%'', the words Jim Morrison used in Five To One are starting to sound realistic:

  They got the guns, but we got the numbers.
  Gonna win yeah, we're taking over.

 But I digress. I find the following video much better than the song it's supposed to support, nowhere near as catchy as Niggas In Paris, and the lyrical content nowhere near as direct or thought-out as, say, those of Ice-T/Bodycount (Cop Killer), N.W.A. (Fuck The Police), or Public Enemy (9-1-1 Is A Joke, Fight The Power).

It is, however, a good step in a good direction, and if it gets its listeners to think about the world they're living in for even a minute, it will have served Humanity some.

Video Of The Week: Jay-Z And Alicia Keys

I admit it, I'm not Jay-Z's biggest fan; as a matter of fact, I pretty much find him to be the most over-rated rapper out there. But some songs just surpass your opinion of someone, like Hard Knock Life had the first time I clung to a Jay-Z song for a while.

And this here is another one. In Empire State Of Mind, he and Alicia Keys sing the praises of their hometown, telling both of its grandeur and warning its trappings; the City That Never Sleeps is the one place that most closely resembles my City, and is the one place I miss when my town goes amiss.

Even on the YouTube page's comments, the first one, from Ashkan22289, states:

I come from Germany and everytime I listen this song I remember my year I stayed in Montreal, it was amazing and love the big cities especially NYC, LA and MTL (Montreal)

P.S: I lvoe this song :D

Yeah, I like it when my town's acknowledged, too. I sing its own praises whenever I can. I also sing NYC's praises often enough.

I also ''lvoe'' this song. I hope you do too.