Months after revealing she had shot visuals to the The Weekend (directed by Solange, no less), SZA finally released what I expected to be unicorn-dusted magic as a quasi-early Christmas gift. What I got was a handful of confusion, accented with a few WTH and “but, for whys”.
To be fair. I was already low high-key in my feelings about the song’s share-a-man lyrics. I’ve never knowingly or intentionally been a side chick — though I have ended up on the receiving end of phone calls from women laying stake to their trifling men. I don’t fight over men and I don’t share. So, no, you would never ever catch me walking around singing:
My man is my man is your man / Her, this her man too / My man is my man is your man/ Her, that’s her man
Like, never.
But, despite my OD levels of judgment, I actually was excited to hear that the alt-R&B diva would be working with Solange, who has become the unofficial queen of cool kid afrocentric futurism. Given the quirkiness of both, I was looking forward to multi-layered visuals that would either be focused on sexual liberation connecting with a sort of “get yours” feminism or some other off-beat scenario featuring an alternative mundane Monday-Friday life. Or even something that followed the song’s actual plotline. Anything wth some substance.
Instead, SZA is dancing around in her own Cranes In The Sky reboot. Don’t get me wrong, the girl is gorgeous and working the hell out of her hair flips, but the long shots and minimalistic scenes have me expecting Solange to jump out any moment and either start dancing or teaching SZA choreography. (Actually, that would have made more sense to me.)
Because she does neither, I started reaching – searching through SZA’s four minutes of gyrations for some sort of takeaway. Do the seven scene set-ups (but only five outfits) add up to the seven days of the week? Is she alone in the video because she’s lonely? What about the repetitive-Boomerang scenes with the words “One opted out. an imbalance of power, shifted the whole tide. it waved and waved.” Could I connect this to the “pyramid” scene in Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf? As you can see, I’ve spent way too much time on this.
Finally, thinking it shouldn’t be this damn hard to just enjoy a music video, I watched it again just for the hell of it. And nothing. So I meed someone to explain this video to me. Because right now it’s as empty as the lyrics. (Maybe that’s what Solange wanted us to think).
But, seriously, if you haven’t seen it yet, press play below and please share your insight, because I’m still hella confused.
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