R&B rock star and Los Angeles native Miguel has just released two new videos from his latest album, Wildheart. However, these videos will be very familiar to anyone who’s been keeping up with the artist. The two videos, along with “coffee,” were originally included in WILDHEART Chapter One: Find What You Love And Let It Kill You, the first part of a short film for his concept album. The question is, however, are the individual pieces as great as the sum of their parts?
“...going to hell,” opens with a view of the LA skyline at dusk, traveling through the streets before we arrive at our destination, a posh art gallery with black and white images of women in the throes of emotion and passion adorning the walls. Meanwhile, Miguel and his female co-star are lip locked behind a curtain away from the crowd, recreating some of those same expressions. What follows is game of cat and mouse around the gallery, intercut with scenes from “coffee.”
“NWA,” which features Kurupt, is a bit more straightforward. The clip finds Miguel walking down the street of an LA neighborhood, rock star sunglasses on to hide the proof a wild night, with not a hair out of place. This is juxtaposed with Kurupt cruising the same streets in a baby blue ‘64 Impala, delivering his crass player lines like the slickest game in the world.
While both videos are great pieces and visually well-produced, they weren’t fully conceived with the idea that they should be separated. Though "...going to hell,” does tell a complete story, it doesn’t quite work as well without “coffee” dovetailing the end to explain some of the imagery. “NWA,” on the other hand, suffers because there isn’t quite enough to keep the audience engaged and feels more like a long interlude than an actual song. With that said, both videos are still worth taking a gander at, but you’re going to have to wait for WILDHEART Chapter 2 (and probably Chapter 3) to have a full idea on what’s going on.
