I need to recommend a rapper. His name is Kaye the Beast. This is his newest music video for the song “Heard,” from the album Salt available on Spotify. He’s an actor/writer/musician based out of New Orleans.
His lyrics and temperament qualify him as a contemporary of Chance the Rapper and Childish Gambino. While the form’s intimate relationship with wordplay is longstanding, artists of the previous generations used their verbal slight of hand to trick listeners and enemies into musical insults and exhibitions of their destructive skill. Kaye the Beast joins Chance and Gambino in a more vulnerable pursuit. Where the trappings of cool once consisted of hot cars, loose women, free drugs, and big guns, a new line up has taken over: humor, relationship struggles, value of friendship, cultural references, pride in one’s home – and a bright sound, a willingness to be happy. Without the same burden of proving rap’s validity that rested on previous generations’ shoulders, these modern performers are free to feel like real people, unrestrained by archaic, false machismo. Lack of consequence isn’t glorified. Instead of the women in his lyrics existing as willing subjects, he manages to uphold the cockiness inherent in the medium and brag about his sexual prowess and popularity while simultaneously expressing the difficulties he faces (rather sympathetically) in communicating effectively with people in his life, particularly lovers and loved ones.
This latest video, directed by fellow actor and writer Hope Leigh, declares itself with 4 shots in the first 15 seconds. A full shot, low-angled, living as the neighbor to a lonely puddle in the melancholy rain. Three close ups. The first, wrestling in and out of focus over the trappings of childhood; the angle is intimately close as if we belong in those swings, but four times we’re told we can’t: they’re covered in rain, our vision can’t hold onto them, the opening beat suggests nothing playful, and the viewers most likely aren’t children. The next shot reconfirms these sentiments elsewhere in the playground while sharing rapper’s name. Finally, we’re given the close up of a balloon that is gradually deflating. Here there is no luxury of poor focus; here the camera is perfectly clear. This is what we are meant to see, if only for a second before the director juxtaposes this image against the dancers staring willfully, poised at the camera. A video serviced by a second watch, the director hides her diegesis, perhaps too subtly for mainstream viewership, like in-his-prime M. Night Shyamalan hiding a Bruce Willis twist. A mural of a fighter. The reflection of sirens. Where Tom Hooper failed by employing extreme close ups at the cost of dynamic visuals, period-rich scenery, and the audience’s comfort, Hope succeeds by making *people* her mise-en-scène – or rather allowing them to overwhelm her urban backdrop with their humanity. Aggressive, engaging low-angles of energetic children with smiles playing at their lips. Dance begins as a playful, purposeful expression of personality and quickly becomes a statement of skill and prowess – and a young strength. Power reinforces play. All the while, Kaye the Beast’s lighting isolates him from this unity. He is night time, he is street light, he is somewhere and when else. When the CDs flash by on the pavement, the association with Alton Sterling, though subtle, is immediate, as is every subsequent request for recognition. To cap it off, Kaye the Beast, who had sported a bow tie throughout the song, exits into the mysterious night with his hood up. Honestly, it’s powerful and poignant work.
Beyond being extremely talented, Kaye the Beast used to be my roommate. And I’ve always wondered why he’s never gone viral.
For that matter, what stops an engaging video from catching on like fire or, to flip the supposition, what catapults a perfectly competent video to the top of a trending page?
This is Kaye “The Beast” in his 2016 music video for the song “Good Times,” also from Salt. In two months, this video will be two years old and have only amassed a little over a thousand views.
During the early days of OK Go, popular logic suggested that stunt videos like long, single takes were the sure fire door to a viewership. The audio quality is professional. The length is nothing more grueling than a superhero trailer. Packed with jokes, energy, and the endearing authenticity of amateur creators, I thought two years ago that was a pitch perfect recipe to half a million views.
Nope, 1000.
Meanwhile, virtually nonsensical personalities mutter without plot or through-line into their Go Pros, pointing the lens half-sincerely at one or two attractive but unoriginal pictures of a mountain or a sunrise or their pretty girlfriend, and before lunchtime, the video is encroaching on the millions. I’m sure I sound bitter, but honestly it’s a formula that operates so consistently, I’m honestly only curious. What can make an independent, talented creator find a viewership? Does it take a lucky retweet from Ellen or a share from some popular Facebook page? Either of those options might honestly be the right one, and I’d accept it. The tragedy there is the loss of brilliant work that other mediums of video productions never risked in the same way. Despite the failings of many projects at the box office or their total lack of wide release, the video market and subsequent streaming market of today somehow protected the quality product. You like a movie? Tell your friends to rent it from Blockbuster, and as the sales go up, so does the availability of the VHS or DVDs or maybe the movie suddenly shows up on TNT late at night and then in the middle of the afternoon. Or maybe that whole process is in reverse. Maybe you find a movie on a streaming site, watching it on a whim, but then you give it a great review and you tweet out how much you liked it. You rewatch the video. No one reads your tweet, but algorithms are noticing your enjoyment of the video and they begin slowly suggesting it more and more. A movie finding a success after 2 or 3 or 5 years is normal. But the life of a YouTube video seems to end in six months, and unlike Blockbuster or your favorite streaming service, there are no employees vetting the content for you, aggregating high quality, enjoyable material directly to your feed. Because after all, there are too many videos for them to see even a little bit of everything.
The battle for artists like Kaye the Beast and director Hope Leigh, as far as I see it, isn’t all that different than the traditional artists’ fight: find a way to be noticed but don’t sweat it if you’re not. That doesn’t account, however, for the righteous anger of those of us who become fans and resent the lack of acclaim we might feel a talented creator deserves.
I am confident, regrettably, that there is no answer or hope for this dilemma on the merit of quality alone. I grew convinced of this after watching this music video by indie pop band Clean Cut Kid.
A professional band, signed and well-funded, with one of the most interesting videos and catchiest songs I’d ever found. Published October 2016. To date: less than two hundred thousand views.
I wouldn’t have found this if I hadn’t spent a couple of weeks searching for fresh music last spring and put serious effort into combing through YouTube for something new (Yeah, you caught on, I use YouTube for my music playlists. I like videos. Don’t @ me, bro.) But that may very well mean that the responsibility is on us to never get lazy in our pursuit and elevation of new creators. Do you like something that many people haven’t heard of? Share it! Want to listen to something other than the musicians that are always on the radio or the top of YouTube’s trending page? Go searching for them.
And when quality creators are being recommended for you to give a listen to, Stop Acting Like You Never Heard of Them.
The Favoring Wind 