by Dan-O

This isn’t a review. It’s a thank you note.

COVID 19 trapped us in the house with the reality of Breonna Taylor. The no-knock-warrant oops-wrong-address killing that never left my mind. I woke day after day searching the news for any indication charges were being pressed or any sense of injustice was being acknowledged. It was just a different level of bad policing, it’s been years of pretending the suspect was reaching for the gun. I’m used to that. Snuffed in your bedroom for no reason is different. A sickness a lot of us couldn’t snap out of.

On his new album Hella Personal Film Festival 2 (Open Mike Eagle did the first) Video Dave sometimes raps sometimes orates through subjects. Over sublime production by Smoke Bonito that sounds like the beat D’Angelo and Devin The Dude would collaborate over, Dave turns that sickness rotting us (me if this doesn’t apply to you) and crafts an earwig hook. While the hook and the groove demand you mouth along he doubles his vocals and whispers the cops names(Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove), mutters about the ongoing systemic nature of this problem. I needed this song. It isn’t catharsis, it doesn’t resolve anything but it does acknowledge that I’m not handling this information wrong. I’m not alone. He gives us a way to keep speaking about Breonna without trapping ourselves. We can dance our way to a future time where, hopefully, it’s safe for an EMT to sleep.

Listen to all of Hella Personal Film Festival 2 below AND BUY IT:

https://videodave.bandcamp.com/album/hella-personal-film-fetival-2