Blood Orange - Charcoal Baby (2018)

This week it’s Charcoal Baby, a 5 minute piece of absolute cinema, directed by Crack Stevens. The video shows Dev Hynes aka Blood Orange, hired as the musical talent for two different families’ events at the same social club. On the left, a big Sierra Leonian family and on the right, queer and Black chosen family. The split screen shows that, despite how different each are, both families have their rituals and traditions, their meals, their elders, their clothes, in many ways more similar than they are different but different in critical, significant and insurmountable ways.

The song opens with a quote from trans actor and activist Janet Mock —

“You asked me what family is
And I think of family as community
I think of the spaces where you don't have to shrink yourself
Where you don't have to pretend or to perform
You can fully show up and be vulnerable
And in silence, completely empty, and...
That's completely enough
You show up, as you are, without judgment, without ridicule
Without fear or violence, or policing, or containment
And you can be there and you're filled all the way up
So we get to choose our families
We are not limited by biology
We get to make ourselves
And we get to make our families

There are so many good music videos by Blood Orange, but I love this one for its optimism. Yes, both families are different, but they are at their core more connected than not. Hynes’ has said this album was about experiencing depression and reflecting on childhood experiences in order to ultimately find hope — this couldn’t be more clear in the video. My favorite moment if 4:01 when both families break into dance.

Thanks for reading Looping Records, and see you next week!