the young people's professor

Aesthetically, I'm tryna figure out which way Ms. Jazmine is trying to go. You hear her music and think, grownfolk R&B, ala Jill Scott, but her videos and visuals seem to be chasing the Rhianna crowd.

And, the latest vid is a tad bit bootleg (except the Basquiat piece - I wonder if that's on loan from the Jay-Z collection, anyway...)The lighting in the performance shots is too harsh, the background screams STUDIO, which it shouldn't be so obvious, unless you are trying to recreate Michael Jackson's Rock With You or Earth Wind and Fire's Let's Groove, among other last minute videos. Plus her wig is overwhelming. Don't wear such a wig AND a fur coat, too much going on. One thing I learned about makeup is you need to blend, which was also overlooked. I don't mind the xnay of the title namesake in the plot, but the storyline of video reminded me of a straight to DVD flick. I'll be waiting for the next video for some redemption...

This comment has been removed by the author.

It seems that Jazmine mentioned in a recent interview that "you can’t bust windows in videos anymore". So, as much as I'd like to believe that the Sullivan camp wanted to use this video to advance some highly ethical, artistic, sociopolitical aim, the reality may very well be that by the time they realized how much FCC red tape they'd have to manage were they to integrate an actual window bustin' into the video, it was too late. They'd already released and started the buzz around the single, which clearly demands at least one broken car window, IMHO. What results is a video that reads more like a missed opportunity than anything else... which is the last thing that devoted Jazmine fans like myself wanted to see. *sigh*

What I find interesting is that there was enough money and foresight behind Carrie Underwood's 2006 "Before He Cheats" to allow for the integration of a wondrously fulfilling amount of vandalism at the hands of a femme fatale. I guess the no-window-bustin' rule hadn't taken effect yet..?

Oh well. If your appetite for smashed windows remains unfulfilled, I invite you to check out two my favorite destructive diva vids, Monica's "So Gone" and EnVogue's "Riddle". Now that, my friends, is how you make le video vindictif!

Frank, I had originally sent my comment meant for this post to the video you posted. Just check that out. I hope that it is understood that Jasmine Sullivan did not bring her A game with this video and that was the disappointment.

I am not sure if my hope her post-mainstraim videos will allow her to diminish her quality and style in videos. Time will only tell. I do not want to be super hard on her for this one video so I will leave you to look at my other comment and this one and make your own judgments.

I will have to defer to you in your more formal capacity as cultural critic simply because you know a lot more about this than I do. As for wanting something 'newer' and 'fresher', I am perhaps exceptional in that I have not yet given myself over to the neoliberal exigencies of 'newness', of the exotic and the unexpected. Of course much of it is an illusion and is belied by a tendency to overproduce, mimic and under-'create'. I can find no more typical example than that of the afro-punk; the consummate rebel undermined by his/her tendency toward mimicry of their whiter and latino counterparts and having no true element of 'newness' beyond that which they have had all along - their race. The call for more afro-punk is to me a call for less typically black and more typically white modes of expression. These may help us transcend the predictable tropes but even more predictable slippages may occur into ever more problematic terrain.
In any event, I agree with you about the video (and for me the song) lacking creative imagination. Your poignant critique of the stereotypicality of black representation is also acknowledged and I am imagining that your work and that of your colleagues will, someday, help us move beyond such complexes. I further acknowledge my overeagerness in giving them kudos for the creative concept. My first reaction to it, though, was that the creative producers and Sullivan's substitution of the imagery employed in the lyrics created a kind of dissonance that was 'refresing' for purely subjective reasons and which challenges videographic orthodoxy (for reasons financial and otherwise) in ways that I had not anticipated. Whether or not it is aesthetically maverick, we can debate - though I am sure you would win.
One correction - I was a student of African Studies at UCLA and am now one of Anthropology at Emory University.

I think the video is terrible. But I also think that part of why the video doesn't work is because the song isn't really about the action.

I think the song is much more complex than that. But this song is really about coming to terms with the very thing you are talking about: an inability to deal in a more healthy way.

At the 2:48 mark, the song turns from the rather standard "angry black woman shit" to the struggle; the heart of the matter...that she's hurt and she's acting out. She is starting to be honest about the selfish nature of the action and how maybe it isn't really helping. The doubt becomes palpable where previously the backgrounds handle this element.

By the 3:40 mark she's at a full realization of how hurt she is about its not even about the car. The song from there is just a stunning vamp where she essentially falls apart and the then the song just ends.

Structurally, this song is a beautiful showcase of a woman coming out of denial and taking responsiblitity, however small, for how she's really feeling.

I think in that way, the song is a brilliantly subversive work.

damn...this is what happens when you edit in a comment...my bad for all the grammatical errors.