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Mr. Dead featuring M. Sayyid - "DYNAMIC TENSION"
There's so much going on during the seven minutes of this video that it's hard for me to pinpoint just what exactly I find so fascinating about it. Starring Mr. Dead and M. Sayyid of the Antipop Consortium, it's equal parts horror movie, kung fu flick and public access style performance video. Mixed in with all of that is a closeup of Mr. Dead eating a live boa constrictor (with a side of maggots), instructions on how to pencil fight, a cameo from MC Paul Barman and an intermission that crashes through the fourth wall to explain that the location for the video needed to be changed halfway through filming after the crew was kicked out of the original site for stealing liquor from the bar. There's even a brief blooper reel at the end. If MTV ever bothered to play videos like this, they might actually win back some of their audience share from vimeo and youtube.
Though this is the first I've heard of him, according to Brooklyn emcee Mr. Dead's biography he's been releasing albums since the 90's, originally as part of the group Metabolics, a group that Prince Paul "discovered" while recording Psychoanalysis. Prior to that, Mr. Dead worked as a makeup artist on various horror movies (I was unable to track down specifically which ones) and one of the Gravediggaz videos. Judging from both his lyrics and the artwork for his past albums, the horror genre seems to have had a rather significant influence on his work.
Further Listening:
Mr. Dead on MySpace
M. Sayyid on MySpace
Video demonstration of Pencil Fighting (maybe I just went to the wrong grade school, but we never did this back in the day)
06/30/2009 8:30:01 PM posted by Fresh