Life Is Good is Nas’
most transcendent album to date. It’s a
mature and accomplished work that ends on a note of clarity and acceptance.* That
ending comes courtesy of the open farewell letter to Kelis, “Bye Baby.” The
song’s straightforward storytelling and vivid imagery make it ideal for the
music video treatment. Filmmaker
Aristotle has been charged with bringing that potential to fruition. Thankfully, he is able to deliver in spades.
The video for “Bye Baby” is a production in every sense of
the word, if only on a small scale. Aristotle
treats the lyrics as if they were the shooting script for a feature film. Everything unfolds according to the story as
it appears on the page. He crafts a trio
of scenarios, each one specifically tailored to its accompanying verse. The production design evolves throughout. The first act is awash in “Neo-Noir” artifice,
while the second owes much to the ambience of Blue note Jazz. New Jack Swing icon Aaron Hall makes
something of a cameo appearance during each refrain of the hook.
Interspersed throughout these vignettes is the video’s
definitive shot. It’s a tight close-up
that gradually transitions to a wide shot in one unbroken take. It ultimately reveals a flawless recreation
of the cover art for Life Is Good. The
image is of a pensive and somewhat shell-shocked Nas, sitting in a “Thinker”
pose with his ex-wife’s wedding dress draped across his lap. Aristotle not only incorporates this image
into the video, but provides the album’s narrative with something of an
epilogue: Nas gets up and walks away, leaving the dress behind. Bye baby, indeed.
With the video for Bye Baby, Aristotle breathes cinematic
life into a musical poem. He allows
viewers to not only hear Nas’ pain, but to actually watch it play out as a
drama. Film is a visual medium, while
rap music is an aural one. Both
represent a marriage of sorts. The
former is of images to sounds, while the latter is of lyrics to music. “Bye Baby” is an amalgam of all of these,
thus representing the perfect union. If
only Nas and Kelis could have been so lucky.
However, if their marriage had worked out, this song and video wouldn’t
exist. Neither, for that matter, would Life Is Good.
* I’m referring
specifically to the standard retail version, not the Deluxe or itunes versions.
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