Pay Attention

In the latest installment of the artful and the macabre, Frank Ocean's video for "Pyramids" is sure to leave you feeling excited and a little confused.  As with all his videos of late, he always looks as if he is coming from, or on his way to do something maniacal and menacing.  He does, however, look quite dapper in his funeral black suite with silver tie clip.

If you're not paying attention at first you miss the subtle distortions that are initially set in the video.  When Frank moves a certain way or wipes his face, his face or body stretches out or distorts as if the body were malleable.

When he enters the strip club all the women initially look beautiful and then their faces and eyes shift into some sort of demonic form.  I'm sure on the surface everyone is going to be saying that this video has everything to do with Free Masons or the Illuminati or whatever propaganda is being spewed this week, but I see more.

For one thing, the song is longer than what the video displays.  The video actually begins at the second part of the song but in total I feel the song tells a story of the black woman's plight in today's society.  It's cool, I'll explain.

Many historical documents depict Cleopatra as a beautiful brown skinned woman, even though a lot of movies like to portray her as fair skinned.  Many people think that the Egyptians are an ancestor of the modern Black people and Africans. In the begging of the song Frank speaks of them taking Cleopatra and she is running.  The outro of the first section of the song(remember it is not in the video) says:

"...Our war is over, our queen has met her doom

No more she lives no more serpent in her room

No more it has killed Cleopatra."

Literally, it is believed that Cleopatra comitted suicide by way of snake venom as was the custom in that time, but figuratively, with the reoccurring metaphor that happens in this song, I feel that Cleopatra is the symbol for Black women in society and the snake is the metaphor for the sins that "killed" her(via the cardinal sin according to the Bible). We have been hunted down and broken down with depictions of what we should be and look like, "Our skin like bronze and our hair like cashmere" that we have lost our value, "The jewel of Africa/What good is a jewel that ain't still precious?"  We've lost our "Cleopatra" in that we've lost our core values as women and as women with a very strong ancestry.  Our women weren't just queens, we were warriors.  We are better than video vixen eye candy and stripper poles.

But sadly, every night, our Cleopatras put on their faces and work at the Pyramid(strip club) and when he says "She's not working for free" I don't think he means the tips she gets paid,  but the payment your soul makes every night when you give it away and devalue yourself by putting a price on your body that is supposed to be a priceless jewel.  

I know this is one of my longer posts but I just really had to break this down to you because if you don't pay close attention to a lot of Frank Ocean's songs you can miss a lot of the messages he tries to convey.  He's an artist in this craft.  This is not just music he makes, these are people's life stories he tells. Pay attention.

Download a cop of the wonderful album now if for some stupid crazy reason you haven't already!  What's wrong with you? You don't like good music?  Well go buy it now!! BUY IT!

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