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Sound Tracks: “We, Myself & I” by Shad
Believe it or not, music videos still exist. Sound Tracks trolls the internet to find the best and the worst of local artists’ new singles and the good, bad, or otherwise noteworthy visuals that accompany them.
So, when Shad didn’t win the Polaris Prize on Monday night, we were like, “Whaaa?” But now, after watching his new video for “We, Myself & I,” the third single from his exquisite TSOL, we’re like…”Whaaa?”
Opening with a disclaimer that reads “Warning: flickering images may cause seizures,” the video’s quite an eye-full: Shad spits rhymes in a recording studio while the walls around him fold into each other and transmogrify—as does he. Eventually, we find him soaring through the sky and obliterating a TTC subway with his fist (not since this dude have we seen such a poignant indictment of public transit in hip-hop!). Near the end, there’s a nod to Freud’s model of the psychic apparatus (id, ego, and super-ego), suggesting that somewhere in here, a profound statement is being made about the psychology of self and social identity. Or maybe the message is just that shrooms are fun.
Directed by Christopher Mills (who’s done similarly phantasmagorical work for Broken Social Scene and Modest Mouse), the video fuses live-action shots with 2D and 3D (2 1/2D?) animation; think Incubus’ Floria Sigismondi–directed “Megalomaniac” video, but with less Bush-era anti-war bandwagoning and more dome-blowing dopeness. The US will finally get a taste of London, ON’s finest mic fiend when TSOL is released stateside via Black Box Recordings/Decon on October 5, and what better way to beguile them Yanks than with a joint marrying rock to rap in a way Lil Wayne couldn’t do if his last tooth depended on it?
