R&B sounds and look very different in the video and song for “Body Down” by singer Novel. (It is actually fitting that the video references Malcolm X and Martin Luther King as it points to the part-political roots of the genre in the 1960s.) ”Body Down” is a remix of an indie pop song by English singer Jack Peñate. In Novel’s hands–aided by the video–it becomes a comment on violence (police brutality, gun violence, assassinations, Islamophobia, militarism, etcetera). Troy Davis’ execution also makes it into the video. Sample lyric: “Before they lay your body down / you got to change the world before you six feet under the ground.” Remix culture sometimes has its benefits.
Via Eddie STATS Houghton
I still like Penate’s un-slick voice, and the roughness of his recordings. Novel is slicker, tailored. But…nice work with the imagery and video – it (and Malcolm X) does the labour that the lyrics do not. And then, there’s Novel’s beautiful, resonant voice.