One of my all-time favorite music videos is the video that goes with J. Cole’s song crooked smile. It has an amazing message. The music video is actually more like a short film by Sheldon Candis. In the short film, we are shown the lives of two men both raising young daughters. We also see the unfortunate moment that the two men cross paths.
The video opens and we see J. Cole tears running down his face in the back of a police car. At this point it is night. It is a very sudden and shocking opening the leaves the watcher curious about how Cole found himself there. Also judging by it opening in a night setting it sets up the reader to prepare for an explanation. In the rest of the video, we are shown two different perspectives. On one hand, we have J. Cole the African American in a small home in a small home in what appears to be a small suburban neighborhood. On the other hand, we see a white male who has a much larger house and more things. What I like about the video is that we see both of these men start their day exactly the same. The next scene in the video opens with J. Cole splashing water on his face he then looks up at himself in the mirror. This is when we get our first perspective switch. Suddenly with no explanation, we see a white male also staring himself in the mirror. This portion of the video goes on back-and-forth if J. Cole brushes his teeth the other man does too they both swish water in their mouth the same way and they both look at their teeth when they’re done. Later on, we find out that these men, even though they are portrayed as being so similar, are very different. We soon realized that Cole is a drug dealer and the other man works for the DEA. As I mentioned before both of them are raising young daughters. It happens to be J. Cole‘s daughter‘s birthday in the video and they are celebrating. At one point when they sing happy birthday it drowns out the actual song and we flip to the white man who is in the back of the van and planning the rest of Cole. The next scene is probably the most heart-wrenching in any music video I’ve ever seen. When the DEA bust through the door we get a huge perspective switch. Now we can see things from the perspective of J. Cole‘s daughter who was asleep in bed. She walks to her door that was cracked open to find her father being arrested. There are officers walking around the house searching for drugs with their weapons drawn. And as young Leslie slowly opens the door we watch as if though from her eyes as one of the officers raises his weapon and shoots her. Now once again we are looking into the cop car at a destroyed J. Cole. The video ends but not before it shows that the officer’s daughter in the drug dealer’s daughter are in the same class and are actually friends.
The video shows the viewer that no matter what life you lead none of us are that different. These men are about the same in every way except for their profession. They get ready in the morning. They both put on their one leg at a time.
