REVIEW | NAS (@Nas) RELEASES VIDEO FOR ‘THE FILM’

By Faizah Cyanide • On Reviews , , ,

NASIRA few days ago Nas began to tease fans with snip­pets of a video which many believed to be the video to ‘Adam and Eve’, one of the sev­en tracks of his latest album – ‘Nas­ir’. Hint­ing a video release was com­ing out on 15th Novem­ber. Fans were in fact delighted when Nas released a 16 minutes and 05 seconds long video entitled, ‘The Film’ which con­tained vocals from vari­ous tracks from his album, ‘Nas­ir’.

The video opens with Nas by the vast ocean which echoes his calm nature, but also some­thing that is very strong and influ­en­cing, then sud­denly we see images reflect­ing social issues, flashes of foot­age from the civil rights move­ments as we hear the line ‘I think they scared of us’ as ‘Not for the Radio’ plays mean­ing eth­nic minor­it­ies have the power to make a change and have great influence.

We see Nas raise his black (people) power fist then switches to Nas in army fatigue against the New York sky­line, ready to lead the revolu­tion as he rhymes about the effects of the gov­ern­ment on black and minor­ity lives, with the notion free­dom only came because it was taken by the people and not gran­ted by the gov­ern­ment. It’s almost a call to edu­ca­tion­al arms.

We see a Pyr­am­id in the Pro­jects as we hear the line, ‘Black Kemet Gods, Black Egyp­tian Gods’ then we see a mum­mi­fied pharaoh rising from a xylo­phag­ous and tak­ing his band­ages off, reveal­ing a young black king of Queens­bridge, it’s power­ful. We see a flash to a deceased young black male, as if to say he can either be woke or end up dead, know­ledge is power, both edu­ca­tion­ally but also know­ledge of self.

Next we hear ‘Cops shot the kid’ which samples ‘Children’s story’ by Slick Rick. Nas is known to con­sist­ently pay homage to his music­al influ­ences so it comes as no sur­prise to see Slick Rick make an appear­ance in this video, it’s only right.

There are images of police bru­tal­ity and racism, a flux of viol­ent image depict­ing viol­ence, arson, vicious dogs and Body bags, in con­trast to the calm ocean we saw at the start, because life is chaos and a struggle, and we see some beau­ti­ful shots of Queensbridge.

I espe­cially liked a snip­pet from one of Nas’ old inter­view where he is asked, ‘How do you feel to be a liv­ing prodigy’? He replies ‘I mean it’s a bless­ing, I’m a product of the old­skool and the new­est of the new’ flash­backs of old foot­age super­im­posed with Nas dressed fresh in 80’s attire which his recently pur­chased cus­tom Ill­mat­ic car, show­ing the fruits of his labor via his longev­ity and impress­ive career.

Next we see Nas in church, as if he is in con­ver­sa­tion with God, we are aware he is a spir­itu­al man and images in this film rein­force that he believes in powers high­er than himself.

Then onto ‘Adam and Eve’ as we see a black couple hold­ing hands and then a couple with a ser­pent and apple reen­act­ing the bib­lic­al scene. As well as a con­ver­sa­tion with God it’s also as though Nas is con­fess­ing his sins as he ‘enjoys the fruit, but we also see him in pray­er, per­haps for the future gen­er­a­tions as we see chil­dren in QB mak­ing up the same photo he has on the ‘Nas­ir’ Album cov­er, hold­ing guns, ‘don’t fall to far from the apple tree’ these are the chil­dren of the future.

He uses a fam­ily scene to get across the mes­sage of love in the com­munity. A fam­ily, rein­for­cing fam­ily val­ues and a grand­moth­er to be respec­ted and listened too, we see a photo of Mar­tin Luth­er King on the wall which is a nice touch.

We see Nas sport­ing Dashiki Top and Kufi hat, tra­di­tion­al Afric­an cloth­ing as he stands by the back­drop of the city sky­line, he is proud of who he is, ‘Remem­ber where you come from, it will keep you safe’ Remind­ing us to remem­ber our roots and not to be ‘shackled by West­ern culture’

The video ends with the same shot of the sea the video began with as if it’s an end­less cycle, ‘I love the past but you see where I’m going I get to fly’ as we see a bird in flight, sym­bol­iz­ing Nas has still to excel in his ven­tures. There is an acapella so there is no beat to dis­tract from the message.

You really need to take your time to enjoy this poignant yet inspir­a­tion­al video from Nas, it nar­rates the main socioeco­nom­ic themes on the album and fans will really appre­ci­ate it as it has the raw feel to it we most love from Nas.

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Faizah Cyanide

Faizah works in clin­ic­al research by pro­fes­sion and has been an avid Hip Hop lov­er since the early 90’s, hav­ing cre­ated her own Hip Hop event, ‘Breakin’ Bound­ar­ies’ in the early 2000’s which was pre­dom­in­antly based around the concept of bboy battles, she has worked with sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al events pro­moters and dan­cers to inspire oth­ers through this artform.

About Faizah Cyanide

Faizah works in clinical research by profession and has been an avid Hip Hop lover since the early 90's, having created her own Hip Hop event, 'Breakin' Boundaries' in the early 2000's which was predominantly based around the concept of bboy battles, she has worked with several international events promoters and dancers to inspire others through this artform.