Beyond Black and White: Humanizing Black Bodies Through Music Videos in the BLM Era

By Abigail Lindo

Abstract:

The act of listening and viewing videos often occurs privately, can easily be repeated, and provides individuals with the comfort and safety of engaging with the performers from a distance. Specifically, White viewers can view Black realities without engaging with Black bodies, allowing them to better understand the plight of individuals they may not typically convene with and challenging their own racial beliefs. The analysis of three recent black and white hip-hop videos will demonstrate the potency of grayscale portrayal to negotiate the embodiment of difference and confrontation of racial ideals. Videos are visual agents that communicate the value of Black identity through honest portrayal of Black narratives and creative escapism from Black realities.

Videos are visual agents that communicate the value of Black identity through honest portrayal of Black narratives and creative escapism from Black realities.

Performances by Black male bodies in hip-hop culture have long been put on display by the media, a fact that represents a fear of the “Other,” which can be understood as the unknown nature and image of black masculine existence relative to performances of hegemonic, White masculinity in the United States. These Black masculine performances challenge societal constructions of what is deemed acceptable for Black male bodies, elevate contradictory perspectives, and reflect struggles faced by African Americans in American society. Music videos made for songs about racial inequality connected to the Black Lives Matter Movement (hereafter referred to as #BLM) often use monochromatic imagery as a strategic way to visually allude to the trauma of racialized existence in America and how races have often been portrayed in an exclusionary binary of opposition since segregation. Images dating from the Civil Rights era and the decades before it are often in black and white—a reflection of the photographic technology of the time—providing a distinct mental reference and association with history for viewers. The creation and consumption of grayscale music videos makes issues like the racial injustice that fuels #BLM more easily accessible for future understanding by tying them to a longer visual history.

Through my analyses of three music videos, I explore the potency and diversity of monochrome portrayal as a tool to negotiate the embodiment of difference and confrontation of racial ideals. First, I will consider the empathy and the power of an alternative Black masculinity in Blood Orange’s “Sandra’s Smile” (2016) before considering hip-hop artist and rapper YG’s use of protest footage and stereotypically portrayed rebellious behavior in “FTP” (2020). Last, I will discuss female mourning and the body in connection to “I Can’t Breathe” (2020) by R&B singer H.E.R. Each video’s screen action and song’s lyrical content collaborate with the added drama of the black and white visual backdrop to create and deliver potent messages about Black grief, rage, and trauma. Importantly, I take into account how the act of listening to and viewing music videos often occurs privately, can easily be repeated, and provides individuals with the comfort and safety of engaging with performers from a distance.

On Visual Media, Music, Trauma, and #BLM

Dead Black bodies have been normalized throughout US history: as spectacle since slavery, progressing to the flagrant lynching displays of segregated America, to gunned-down bodies, Americans have become numb to these images in the 21^st century. This numbness acts as a survival mechanism when the weight of Black trauma is too heavy for Black citizens to mentally bear, for “to be Black in America is to live in a state of siege.”¹ BLM began in 2013 with the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in a Florida suburb on February 26, 2012.² Of course, outside of his death, racism has persisted and been exacerbated by stressors like the COVID-19 pandemic, financial disparities, and sexism, and is a source of trauma with ongoing iterations birthed from a history of subjugation in America. It presents a reality where depression is common and dissociation emerges as a manifestation of trauma.³,⁴ Black bodies are commodified, sexualized, politicized, and demoralized. Black and White bodies are not treated the same.⁵ Black men and Black masculinity are essentialized, sexualized, and feared, while Black women are neglected in the medical system, seen as demanding, or ignored altogether.⁶,⁷ These realities are not specific to a single polarizing death or social justice movement, but to existence in Black skin in a country initially designed to suppress it. The racial disparities in American culture are not always overt, seen in microaggressions, exclusionary practices on paper, and in behaviors felt by every Black person with varying levels of severity.

Professor and author bell hooks states “before racial integration, black viewers of movies and television experienced visual pleasure in a context where looking was also about contestation and confrontation,” considering her own family’s critical viewership of Blackness as depicted by White creators in popular television shows in the mid-20^th century.⁸ Depictions of Blackness in White-produced shows created a palatable performance of Black personhood and family as imagined by Whites, making them safer for White viewers. Similarly, modern BIPOC celebrities represent safe or more approachable racial figures for those outside BIPOC communities to encounter and understand.⁹ Music has long been an escape, a sounding board, a connection to the eternal, and a foot in the door for Black performers to promote the humanity of Black lives and normalize Black existence and Black bodies.¹⁰ Through musical expression and performance, Black bodies can be perceived as acceptable, contributing to the US identity in shaping popular musical diversity globally. This is clearly observed in the popularity of Black genres, including hip-hop and R&B, in numerous European, South American, African, and Asian countries.¹¹ It is troubling that the US often values the products more than its producers, but music videos challenge the often-feared visage of Black male performers and humanizes them through the musical messages, surrounding individuals, and/or use of common racial tropes.

Monochrome photography “can function as an agent of visual historicism,” because it “helps construct narratives that give issues and events the distance and authority of time.”¹² Photography and videos currently made in black and white inadvertently signal nostalgia in viewers and present an urgency to understand the past: “black and white helps configure subjects with a certain depth of historical meaning.”¹³ Musical artists and directors harness the power associated with monochrome images to further the lyrical and musical tone within a song, causing the viewer to subliminally consider their own temporality and that of the subject of artistic focus. In the case of videos made for #BLM, the use of monochrome acts as a fresh lens on the issue, with newer visual effects and narratives, while signaling the dated existence of racism in America without doing anything beyond removing colors.¹⁴

Music videos allow Black bodies to be seen rather than just heard, no longer disconnected from the vessel where the sound originated. Videos act as surrogates for musical connection, allowing viewers to engage with the sound as image in an imagined space and scenario, experiencing it with two senses and removing the fleeting aspect of live performance since this experience can be repeated at the viewer’s leisure. The music released in the past eight years relating to police brutality against Black men and women has been created with different temperaments, from peaceful protests to outright rage, all serving “this generation’s need to agitate against the institution of systemic racism, which is a fundamental threat to not only Blacks in America, but everybody in America.”¹⁵ Hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar’s artful visual for “Alright” from 2015 has been called an anthem for the #BLM movement, a monochrome ode to Compton, CA (where Lamar was raised) and to Black artistic expression more generally. It has been largely considered in academic discourse as one of the most popular and successful sonic and visual reference points for Black artistic resistance in the past ten years, so I aim to elevate other works, which are similar in color palette and diverse in meanings.¹⁶ The three videos and songs of focus in this paper add to the corpus of powerful pieces for Black protest and humanity.

Grief: “Sandra’s Smile” by Blood Orange

Blood Orange, whose real name is Devonté Hynes, does not shy away from organic Black movement and expression, using empathy as a guide in his sound and visual elements. The video for “Sandra’s Smile” shows Hynes’ unchoreographed dancing and biking on New York streets in familiar spaces, expressing a freedom his lyrical subjects were robbed of.¹⁷ He wrote the song in memory of Sandra Bland, the 28-year-old Black woman who was arrested in Houston following a traffic stop on July 10, 2015 and was found hanged three days later in her jail cell.¹⁸ Her death was ruled a suicide, and the officers involved in her death were eventually fired but faced no immediate repercussions. Hynes’ frustration with the situation is reflected in the chorus: “Can you see it in my face? Had enough for today. It’s hard for me to stay in place, unless I force myself awake.”

The sonic space is occupied by simple programmed drumbeats, synth, saxophone solos, and added vocals from background singers, all colliding to provide a mid-tempo backdrop for Hynes’ elegy. The video, which Hynes directed, opens with Hynes and three women moving as he sings the words to the first verse. Black grief is seen as a collective source of strength, not something to feed off of or thrive on but something to persist in spite of. Grief is present in the absence of color, something that simultaneously mutes the visual reception of the viewer while holding their attention. The symbolism of monochrome depicts grief through an imagined nostalgia, grieving youth and innocence. Hynes smiles when singing about Sandra’s smile, mirroring what he describes as an act of emotional understanding for the joy that existed in her life outside of the angst and sadness associated with her death. His face and body move through a range of emotions during the video, and in doing so, he attempts to shape the shifting emotional states of viewers. The power in this presentation is subtle but persistent. It reflects a sentimentality and playful approachability in masculine performance, of power and submission, embodied in Hynes’ work and heard in this track through the restraint of synth and drum allowing the saxophone to sing. His protest is often internal, communicated through his expressions (and those of the women accompanying him in multiple scenes), potentially with the belief that it does not presently necessitate greater energy and does not serve Sandra’s memory. It seems evident that some form of grieving has already occurred, in and through the creation of the song itself.

Hynes’ empathy is not intended as weakness. He contends that he did not agree with “Sybrina’s quote,” in reference to words spoken by Sybrina Fulton (the mother of murdered teenager Trayvon Martin) about her lack of forgiveness towards the neighborhood watchman who gunned him down as self-defense.¹⁹ This is followed by Hynes asking if “we lose you if we don’t,” referring to Martin and his life lost. Fulton is quoted as saying “our grief doesn’t define us; it propels us to do something to bring change.”²⁰ Hynes channels his grief into music, visually understood through dancing, reflecting, smiling, meandering through city streets on his bike. There is liberation, even calmness, to the chaotic movement of the dance, created by the juxtaposition of Hynes’ soft tenor voice, instrumentation, and the visual of the black and white muted movement. He names Bland and alludes to Martin: he brings them specifically to mind, so the viewer hears their names, thinks of the injustice, and hears Hynes’ lament with animated movement. In this way Hynes emotionally positions the viewer to be receptive to the visual presentation of Black bodies on city streets, existing in non-threatening roles, with his voice as a guide.

Rage: “FTP” by YG

In stark contrast to Hynes’ empathetic approach with the focus on reflection, YG (whose real name is Keenon Jackson) proclaims “FTP” or “fuck the police,” an all too familiar chant in hip-hop culture popularized by NWA (or N****z Wit Attitudes) in 1988. The song and video, released in June 2020, were motivated by the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who was murdered in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 after a police officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes.²¹ Jackson’s more stereotypically rebellious behavior displayed in the video connects to representations of Black masculinity spread by the media, which can be understood as “a collection of practices constructed through social anxiety and fear of Black men” since “Black men are seen as both a threat and a commodity by the white, patriarchal, capitalist society.”²² This definition recognizes that “both race and gender are socially constructed identities informed by and through relationships of power,” which is why “Black masculinities have been largely interpreted in relationship to White, hegemonic masculinity.”²³ Therefore, the dominant knowledge of Black masculinity is problematic, constructed through outdated stereotypes and ideas that are not representative of Black men individually as something of their own creation.

The video begins with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr., “a riot is the language of the unheard,” and features footage of Jackson participating in a BLM protest he organized in Hollywood, CA.²⁴ Imagery includes a sea of protesters marching in the streets, coming head-to-head with a phalanx of officers, vandalizing cop cars and property, and displays of posters and balloons in memoriam.²⁵ The video ends with someone speaking about the violence, fear of the police, and the aftermath that ensues as Black lives continue to be wrongfully taken, saying “we’re not the ones who killing us—y’all killing us, we can’t make a change if y’all don’t change.” The speaker increases in volume and comes to tears, as images of cop cars on fire and people crying and rioting in the streets continue. The video ends with a statement about police brutality featuring the hashtag #defundthepolice. YG’s intention is clear and the footage used adequately connects to the title of the song.

The monochrome video is fuming with rage that is not subdued with the absence of color. It demonstrates poetry in pain, the violence of silence, the tyranny of trauma, and the fire of fear. Jackson’s righteous indignation furthers a narrative of Black lives against “blue lives” or officers, acknowledging animosity with the discrimination associated with law enforcement and the fact that a career does not erase or negate race. Viewers may reject Jackson’s stance since it does not value the humanity of officers’ lives, which may be his way of reciprocating behaviors. His message of officers against Black lives could also be viewed as White lives against Black lives, since the institutionalized racism that normalizes the killing of Black people by officers has roots in slavery. Jackson’s aim is not peace, as the unrest in his video shows, but projects the rioting and protests as necessary disruptions to provoke recognition of humanity for Black lives.

The monochrome video is fuming with rage that is not subdued with the absence of color. It demonstrates poetry in pain, the violence of silence, the tyranny of trauma, and the fire of fear.

Trauma: “I Can’t Breathe” by H.E.R.

Singer H.E.R., whose real name is Gabriella Wilson, released “I Can’t Breathe” in June 2020. The protest song calls out the continued death of Black lives caused by inequality and celebrates the memory of George Floyd. The chorus reads “I can’t breathe, you’re taking my life from me, I can’t breathe, will anyone fight for me?” The song is titled after Floyd’s pleas for help as he struggled under the force of an officer’s knee. The notoriety of the phrase “I Can’t Breathe” for the #BLM movement originates as the final words of Eric Garner, who was killed in 2014 when an officer put him in a chokehold.²⁶ Wilson’s signature guitar playing and soulful voice aid in the transmission of the song’s message for change, winning her the Grammy for 2021 song of the year a few weeks before the trial for Derek Chauvin, the officer who was later charged in connection to the death of George Floyd.²⁷,²⁸ The black and white video, which was played during the opening statements of said trial, also uses images of protests like Jackson’s “FTP,” but Wilson’s lyrical message is different.²⁹ The video circles through shots of global, peaceful protests with brief moments of confrontation and images of lives lost, animated and plastered on posters.

The most powerful aspect of the video is the sequence featuring a black backdrop slowly filling with names, each belonging to a Black life lost to injustice, appearing one-by-one to eventually fill the screen. This mode of presentation amplifies the gravity of the issue, the lives lost, by naming them and giving them identity in community with one another—a troubling final image. Simultaneously, a spoken-word poem is recited, featuring the damning lines “you are desensitized to pulling triggers on innocent lives because that’s how we got here in the first place,” and “we are fed up with eating your shit because you think your so-called Black friend validates your wokeness and erases your racism.” Other lyrics, referring to “generations of supremacy” and “trust-fund pockets” allude to the role of wealth and class as aspects of value distancing Black and White identities in America, perceived motivators for the continuation of racist political and criminal bias and related practices.

The use of monochrome imagery in this video while omitting Wilson’s image as the vocalist, centers the listeners gaze on the protest images, on the faces of a sea of people, on compassionate acts occurring in these environments, and removes the focus from the often-glamorized physicality of the celebrity performer. The lack of color aids in furthering the tone of the song, allowing what is seen to better match what is heard. Wilson is not seen, but her Black female identity is sonically present and the weight it carries in communicating the traumatic subject matter is just as powerful without her face. The music—sonically appealing, mid-tempo, and earnest—carries the lyrical messages as a backdrop to the images seen, centering the listener on the song’s bigger message of Black lives being valuable among others rather than viewed as inferior. The integration of global protest footage, blending an abundance of grey hues representing diverse participant complexions, demonstrates a unified understanding of the value of Black lives and humanity, a global mourning and reflection, attempting to counteract the sentiments held by many Americans about the #BLM movement and actions that spurred its initiation, which continue to inflict trauma and fear while tarnishing the unified visage of a country long torn.

Connections:

This analysis of monochrome videos connects to W. E. B. Du Bois’s concept of “double-consciousness,” a state of “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of the world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”³⁰ Du Bois’s words are in reference to Black existence in America, stating that “double-consciousness” exists in place of a true self-consciousness. If this statement remains true, what can be said for the Black artists in this analysis? Musical artists, like those discussed, are always cognizant of the gaze of fans, reporters, and others who may not know who they are. There is always an audience viewing their work and they are always considering the power of their expression as a racialized cultural product since some aspect of their public identity is shaped by the work they create. The diversity of widespread viewership is unquantifiable, and artists are exposed to listeners of all intersectional backgrounds, something that potentially affects reception of musical messages and cultural reception. Artists cannot avoid this reality, but Du Bois’s words also possess a sadness stemming from never fully belonging or being worthy of taking up their space – which is why the creation of songs to advocate for the value of Black life in the 21^st century is telling.

Monochrome videos signal the past while revealing sustained prejudice, a shameful reality of the flawed racial binary that persists in American society. Using monochrome imagery in music videos for the #BLM movement will not solve this issue, but it does bring attention to it and aid in a resistance composed of powerful cultural products over time. In the sea of black, white, and grays, race is no longer the focus of our visual reality. All three videos act as vehicles for the realization of difference to navigate equality. Each of the three artists present work that serves BLM, calls out injustice, and memorializes lives lost, but to different audiences with different responses to the issue, not based specifically on genre or listeners’ ages. Artists’ celebrity and respect adds credibility to their expression, which is also deemed valuable for its sonic merits. Consideration of the three works described brings into question the role of celebrity, relevance of sonic presence and visible embodiment, and reactions to powerlessness. Through their distinct manifestations of #BLM protest, all three monochrome videos hearken back to a past time to trigger future change.

About the Author:

Abigail Lindo is a Jamaican-born, African American vocalist and ethnomusicologist pursuing her PhD at the University of Florida. Her research has been presented at national and international conferences, spanning interests that include Portuguese popular music and identity, African American sonic expression, feminisms, music festival culture, and community music-making. She is a former K-12 music educator and a classically trained mezzo-soprano who writes songs and plays piano in her downtime.

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1
Imani Danielle Mosley, “Say Her Name,” in Performing Commemoration: Musical Reenactment and the Politics of Trauma, eds. Annegret Fauser and Michael A Figueroa (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2020), 142.
2
Aleem Maqbool, “Black Lives Matter: From Social Media Post to Global Movement,” BBC News, July 10, 2020.
3
Lola Jaye, “Why Race Matters When It Comes to Mental Health,” BBC Future, August 11, 2020.
4
Kyaien O. Conner, “Why Historical Trauma Is Critical to Understanding Black Mental Health,” Psychology Today, October 1, 2020.
5
Wesley C. Hogan, On the Freedom Side: How Five Decades of Youth Activists Have Remixed American History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019), 124.
6
Pierre W. Orelus, “Black Masculinity Under White Supremacy: Exploring the Intersection Between Black Masculinity, Slavery, Racism, Heterosexism, and Social Class,” Counterpoints 351 (2010), 101.
7
Vernellia R. Randall, “Inequality in Health Care Is Killing African Americans,” Human Rights 36, no. 4 (Fall 2009), 20.
8
bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation (New York: Routledge, 2015), 117.
9
BIPOC means Black, Indigenous, People of Color.
10
Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), 2–5.
11
Marcyliena Morgan and Dionne Bennett, “Hip-Hop and the Global Imprint of a Black Cultural Form,” Daedalus 140, no. 2 (Spring 2011), 184.
12
Paul Grainge, “TIME’s Past in the Present: Nostalgia and the Black and White Image,” Journal of American Studies 33, no. 3 (1999), 385.
13
Grainge, “TIME’s Past in the Present,” 384-385.
14
In discussion of the three videos selected, I consider the artists as agents over the final visuals produced, aided by those in production, as I also consider their impact over the audio used for the videos (despite the abundance of audio engineers, producers, and other skilled workers associated with audio production). This does not reflect an unawareness or lack of appreciation for the many creatives needed to produce a finished audio track or video, but aids in focusing the analysis on each video’s aesthetic with the artist as the sole visual and/or sonic reference point.
15
Stephanie Shonekan, “Conclusion: Race, Place, and Pedagogy in the Black Lives Matter Era,” in Black Lives Matter & Music: Protest, Intervention, Reflection, eds. Fernando Orejuela and Stephanie Shonekan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018), 112.
16
Stephanie Shonekan, “Black Mizzou: Music and Stories One Year Later,” in Black Lives Matter and Music: Protest, Intervention, Reflection, eds. Fernando Orejuela and Sephanie Shonekan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018), 18-21.
17
Devonté Hynes, “Blood Orange – Sandra’s Smile,” YouTube, October 27, 2015.
18
Molly Hennessy-Fiske, “Texas Trooper Who Arrested Sandra Bland is Fired for Handling of Case,” Los Angeles Times, March 3, 2016.
19
Chitra Ramaswamy, “Trayvon Martin’s Parents, Five Years On: ‘Racism is Alive and Well in America,’” The Guardian, February 13, 2017.
20
Sybrina Fulton, “A Mother on a Mission: Sybina Fulton on the Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin,” Essence, February 2, 2017.
21
Amy Forliti, Steve Karnowski, and Tammy Webber, “Jury’s Swift Verdict for Chauvin in Floyd Death: Guilty,” Associated Press, April 21, 2021.
22
Quaylan Allen and Henry Santos Metcalf, “‘Up to No Good’: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Fear of Black Men in US Society,” in Historicizing Fear: Ignorance, Vilification, and Othering, eds. Travis D. Boyce and Winsome M. Chunnu (Louisville, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2020), 20.
23
Allen and Metcalf, “‘Up to No Good,’”20.
24
Allison Hussey, “YG Shares New ‘FTP’ (Fuck the Police) Video, Filmed at Black Lives Matter Protest,” Pitchfork, June 12, 2020.
25
YG, “FTP (Official Music Video),” YouTube, June 12, 2020.
26
Madeline Holcombe, Artemis Moshtaghian, and Sahar Akbarzai, “Eric Garner’s Family Commemorates His Death as Judge Allows Litigation Against Police and City Officials,” CNN US, July 19, 2021.
27
Stephanie Shonekan, “Black Mizzou: Music and Stories One Year Later,” in Black Lives Matter and Music: Protest, Intervention, Reflection, eds. Fernando Orejuela and Sephanie Shonekan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018), 18-21
28
Austa Somvichian-Clausen, “Everything You Should Know About the Derek Chauvin Trial Over George Floyd’s Death,” The Hill, March 31, 2021.
29
Heidi Schmidt, “’I Can’t Breathe’ Video Played During Opening Statements of Derek Chauvin Trail,” Fox4KC, March 29, 2021.
30
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, ed. Brent Hayes Edwards (Oxford University Press: London, 2007), 8.