BLEU DOPE’s T-Bruin comes out with his first video since making his (permanent) trip from Atlanta. “R.I.P Peace” is off of his upcoming tape The Big Bruinski, and was filmed in the six-mile radius encompassing Harlem’s Courtney Callender Playground and Chelsea’s Highline Park. Myself and Joe Cruz were invited to the day-long shoot, perpetually unsure of the narrative that Bruin and his BLEU DOPE guardians were weaving throughout the day. After seeing the finished product, though, it’s impossible to deny the deliberate vision.
With this video, Bruin emerges as a man whose passage is certain, but whose ends are not. Potentially an allegory for his life, the commodious emcee traces his passage from Atlanta’s Zone 6 to Uptown NYC. But that’s the surface, obvious, short-sighted view of the trip he takes in this video. And although it may seem simple in its imagery, a complexity lies beneath Bruin’s bleu-filtered track. This composition, of stories encapsulated, folding into themselves, carries from Bruin’s (self-produced) instrumental to the images themselves.
Bruin opens with lightly-tapped, concave chimes, rewinding droplets of soothing showers. Lopsided booming drums follow, inebriating listeners into a dazed knock. We hear a thoughtfully uncalibrated surface hide an amity of fantastically-rendered jingles. With two characters, a schizophrenia threatens to set in, but Bruin’s careful manipulations wrap these personas together. He does this by including a windy confusion, swirling around the entirety of the track, giving us pause, unable to judge the direction Bruin’s allegory will choose. Its perpetual motion brings us through the layers of sound, poised to follow either persona. Unforgiving, Bruin takes this opportunity to lay subtly revolutionary bars about parolees, penny-pinching, social disparities, an inability to relate to the paper-cha$e, taking to the streets for what you believe in, and being a “Hippie with OG tendencies.”
But leave your thoughts on “conscious rap” at the door. This isn’t that. This is pure Bruin. Pure thought. Pure empowerment. Not once does he lay claims of superiority. Not once does he try to format a way of life, or boast an unearned strength. His humble demeanor forces listeners to hunker down close to his words, close to his actioned flow, close to his story. Bruin’s peppered ad-libs grittily hold back the intensity he spits with, completing the leveled (but not level) character he develops here. And although I certainly have a theory on what this video is meant to tell us about Bruin’s personality, I’d rather leave you with questions.
Who came to Bruin’s door in the first few seconds? Who are his blue guardians? Are they guardians at all? What was the significance of the blue orbs following many scenes? With shots of the city as he plunges into water, does he carry his final moments to an assured death? If you don’t know, watch again and again and make up your own meaning.
It’s all Bruin could ask for.
-CUTT CZAR (HERONALD REAGAN)
FORMERLY KNOWN AS : FRANKLIN WEATHERFIELD AKA DENZEL SPLASHINGTON AKA PATOIS VUITTON AKA CHUCKDEGAULLE
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