literally, and figuratively.

it’s been almost a month since our last installment, but we’re back for more critical analysis of the ever-vanishing excessive music video.

as the music industry dies a slow and painful (and public) death, more and more musical “accoutrements” find themselves in decline. Tour support shrinks, marketing schemes go “grassroots”, and the most expendable musical adornment, the music video, either disappears completely, or has such a microscopic budget that it’s pawned off to a friend to do for free.

but looking back a mere 10 years, the music industry was in boom-times. billboards promoting records littered American streets, lavish cross country gallivanting, showered in champagne and caviar packed auditoriums and welcomed artists as they came into town, and turned the other cheek when they absconded with wives and girlfriends in their luxurious tour buses. and music videos? never bigger. As mentioned here, Michael Jackson’s 1996 video for “scream”, which cost $7MM, included $3000/day for Michael’s makeup alone. Most artists nowadays want videos that cost $3,000 total.

But, the dead horse has been beaten, today’s subject, one of the kings of boom-time’s past, Percy Miller. Otherwise known as Master P.

In his epically gaudy spectacle, “Make ‘Em Say Ugh”, P. brings us to a magical basketball game on a court made of gold. Strangely, all of the athletes wear different colored jerseys, which I’m sure creates some confusion as to who is on who’s team. Percy arrives abruptly, in a gold-plated tank no less, and proceeds to rap, pick-and-roll, and fire gigantic bullets into not only the crowd, but our hearts and minds.

Throughout the video, the court explodes, literally, is met with a barage of flashing lights (which surely didn’t help the players involved in the game) and is cheered on by a rawkous fan base (including one shaquile o’neal.)

P. and his cast of characters spit unintelligable raps, and look ridiculous in shorts and beanies. A relative judgment, as 3/4ths of the way through, they’re all put to shame by a dread’ed Mystikal (or is that Da Brat?) who appears, sitting on top of the basket, shorts riding a little too high. (I hope he and his team incurred a technical foul for this brazen act.)

P., had perhaps conceived this music video as a sort of demo-tape for the NBA to showcase his basketball acumen, and even went on to brief and unmemorable stints as a professional baller (in 1998 with the Charlotte Hornets, and 1999 with the Toronto Raptors) but his career was cut short, presumably due to the gold-plated tank he rolled in on at the start of every game. Sorry P. Not a good look.

Maybe it’s actually better now that there’s less money around for videos?

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