Let me start by saying that I really liked Brandy growing up. The early and mid-90’s were a time where R&B artists were not only bigger than rap artists, but they were also crossing over as quick as they could come out. Brandy was a big star in the 90’s.
Let me just mention random Brandy facts really quick:
She was on a major network TV show before she even had her record deal
She was a multiplatinum teenage artist
She starred in her own hit TV show (at least a hit among black people... I don’t think I’ve met a white person that has ever mentioned Moesha)
Total album sales in the 90’s = 20 million
This is all one person.
This is all one black teenager/woman in America.
This was all huge!
But when we look back at the 90’s I seldom hear anyone mention Brandy’s name outside of “I Wanna Be Down.” Maybe artists doing a lot of things at once was a bigger deal back then than it is now. Maybe the fact that her brother is responsible for the Kardashian’s rise to fame is subconsciously stopping us from giving her credit for anything anymore. Or maybe we are forgetting about what she truly contributed. She gave us THIS video. At the time this was her first official follow up to a huge hit album. She had been acting pretty steady up to this point and I am not sure what kind of buzz was around this release. I know I was excited. Her self-titled album got a lot of plays on my cd player. It was a different time. R&B was still great. She was already killing on the radio thanks to a duet with Monica AKA The Artist You Play When You Don’t Like Brandy. “The Boy Is Mine” played everywhere and all of the time. The video might’ve just been on loop for the entire year of 1998. There is no proof that it wasn’t. It feels like it was. It felt massive putting these two literally against each other on the same song. Well, let me clarify. I realize that some of the songs/videos I’m picking were not necessarily mainstream popular. To elaborate even further, some of this stuff was definitely big to the “urban” audience and unnoticed everywhere else. So when I say a term like “massive” I essentially mean “huge to black people.” Just figured I’d throw that out there. And then this video was released.
We open with random city shots that I assume are Canada being passed for New York like every other production I love. The color scheme for outside are the same grays and faded blues that scream late 90’s (see also: the Matrix).Bass riff and pan down..... Mercedes Benz and a dark figure getting out......
IS THAT MA$E!?!?!? ARE WE STARTING THE TRACK OFF WITH MR. HARLEM WORLD HIMSELF!?!?!?!? At the time that this video was released Ma$e might’ve been my favorite rapper. Today all I see is a backsliding pastor. Back then, Bad Boy Records was so huge it was ridiculous. I’m pretty sure Puffy had done a remix to everything but the National Anthem by now.
Who has a leather coat, aviator sunglasses, a flip Nokia phone, and the worlds baggiest slacks blowing in the wind? Ma$e does damn it! To think it was anyone else is as blasphamous as leaving the dollar sign out of his name. Hell naw! Not on my watch. Now take these bars:“Spent half of my advance on jars from Branson/ To make it through my circumstances”How this was in so many rappers bars in the 90’s is beyond me. He names a popular weed dealer from NYC by name in the middle of a song played on the radio non-stop. He was one of many. Was dry snitching not a thing back then, or nah?“So I might give a six to my chick, Benz to my mom/ Crib so big it looks like a Senagong.” .... come on man. That’s not a word. Maybe you meant synagogue but that’s not what you said Mason.... That is not what you said.Now lets get into these sultry vocals from these golden pipes of the one and only Brandy Norwood.
Here she is doing her best Spiderman impression while on the telephone. I’m sure it’s windy so whoever is on the other line better get used to asking her to re-sing this verse. Wait a second. Ma$e is still on the phone... Are you guys directing your verses at each other through an overpriced 90’s cell service? This could get interesting.
So Brandy is floating now. She doesn’t just stick to walls. She can fly. She is at minimum a double threat at this point.
And here in lies the rub. As with all great talents there is always going to be things they are just not good at. Michael Jordan can’t dress when he isn’t on a basketball court, Tupac couldn’t dodge bullets, and just like her idol Whitney Houston, Brandy should not be dancing. As mandatory as it was for every R&B female to have a choreographed portion to all of their videos, she should have stopped this from happening the second they set up that stage. I don’t think I would have to dig deep to find footage of Brandy’s dancing be laughed at, in her prime no less, during the middle of one of her concerts. I know I have seen it before. Nothing good will come from this. NOTHING. As predicted there are enough camera cuts to this dance sequence that she could’ve easily been replaced by a body double, or even another less accomplished 90’s R&B starlet, and no one would be able to tell the difference.
These people walk by so casually with a woman singing while standing on the wall parallel to the ground that I’m starting thing that I’m wrong for being confused about this video treatment. I understand the “top of the world” thing is to suggest that she’s on top by physically having her above things, but how will this pay out in relation to her ongoing conversation with Ma$e? He’s already flown in the “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems” video. He’s not gonna meet her in the clouds. Been there done that. Quite frankly, he appeared so Harlem in that first verse I’m surprised that he didn’t hop back in that Benz and go home after he saw them setting up the harness for all of this action.
Nice slow motion spinning braid whip action here. I might need to take it easy on this director. He made Brandy look like she was a fully function human on that dance floor. Another shout out to Sketchers. I don’t remember them being that big but this is the second 90’s R&B female wearing them in a dance sequence in a row. Maybe that was their selling point and it just never made it to the public. If you wanna sing and pretend to be a good dancer these are the shoes you wanna wear.
Doesn’t take long to see what footage should’ve stayed on the cutting room floor. there has been a lot of repeat shots of the same floating and wall walking/singing, but this added stop light action makes it look even hokier than before.
Random paid extra driving pedestrian agrees.
Sadly, this is the image I remember most from this videos original run on TV. Brandy pretend air gliding from car to car. I probably thought it looked fun. She probably had fun doing it. Neither of these are reasons to approve of it happening.
Ok. Tons of flying budget money, but not enough to give her a different outfit for each treatment? This is the struggle dance outfit, as evidenced by those same blood colored Sketchers that were on her rhythmless feet on the stage. Maybe this was her most comfortable flying outfit. Or maybe she just knew they wouldn’t actually use that dancing footage and she put all of her skill into pretend car roof gliding. Either way I have taken note.
Ma$e is back and he bought the shiny green shirt, the backwards semi-snap back, an iced out Jesus piece and even less dancing skills than Brandy. He always got a pass though because he always seemed to be having fun, he could rapper pretty solid and it was clearly never a choreographed offering. He was always just doing what a Puffy Daddy production made his body wanna do, and in the 90’s that was more than acceptable. I have a feeling though, that I know the exact moment when he stopped being my favorite rapper.In five...
four...
three...
two...
one...
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Ma$e.... come to the alter. We are gonna need to do a prayer for all of the dead that I am right now. Are you doing a planned out dance with Brandy and all of her miscellaneous back-ups right now? I thought Cam’ron hated you because of all the snitching in your book, but I think I found the real problem. Harlem will not stand for this shit, and neither will I. If you don’t take your happy ass back to the block. You did a feature with two verses on a song with heavy radio play, showed up to the video shoot, and let those people convince you that doing this dance was going to help? Make another video just like this shot for shot and throw them both in the garbage. This was uncalled for.
Word to the untrained video watcher out there: a clap over the head in a choreographed dance has literally only been accomplished once and not been horrible and elementary looking.
The Mighty MJ in Thriller is the ONLY person able to pull it off. Otherwise, it looks like a move they just threw in there to make it appear like your dancing or moving more than you are. You might’ve well started doing jumping jacks after the hook back came in. This shit is not in your bag.
Not gonna lie, this combination at that time was borderline perfect when it comes to collabs. Brandy & Ma$e make sense especially given the time period. This video however... It was strange enough that I didn’t even want include excerpts from Ma$e’s second verse. It was 1998 and he was a Bad Boy rapper. Let’s just guess: diamonds, watches, money, making money, girls, at least one car. At one point Brandy does a Puff ad-lib, which by that time in music had become such a punchline that it borders on corny. It then falls over that border when you see the amount of serious on her face when she lip syncs it in the video. In all fairness, I asked for this. I started doing this so I have no one else to blame. Kobe’s last game in the league was this week. I used to wonder how things would’ve turned out if Kobe and Brandy had kept dating. Two ideas popped into my head.1) Kobe saw this on the horizon and decided he’d be better off marrying a random video vixen from his own failure of a rap video.or 2) If Kobe did keep dating her, HE WOULD’VE BEEN THE ONE FEATURED ON THIS SONG!Both ideas seem pretty awesome. There is nothing I would’ve enjoyed more than writing this if Kobe Bean Bryant had been the featured rapper..... I have a solution.
Next Video: Brian McKnight feat. Kobe Bryant “Hold Me”
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