Dope Saint Jude is queer hip-hop artist and activist from Cape Town, South Africa. From what I’ve seen so far, Dope Saint Jude is a real lyricist with conscious and relevant bars! Her song “Liddy” is a carefree song that encourages people to do what they love- Even if that means smoking and drinking (no shade or judgement!) I thought the visual was a GREAT match for the audio; it was just as fun and youthful as the song! The video featured Dope Saint Jude and a few of her friends partying around the city in broad daylight. I love this component of the video because it shows that hip-hop isn’t always clubs, violence, etc. You can still talk about “adult like things” like drinking, while preserving your youth. She could’ve DEFINITELY had this video shot at a club, but I feel like this approach was very creative and fun! I also love how she featured a group of friends who didn’t have the stereo-typical “video-vixen” look. Some of the women in the video were queer, light-skinned, dark-skinned, one had locs, another was natural- so it was great to see that representation in the video. One part of the video that REALLY stood out to me was the scene where there were two women seen kissing. I thought that was really important because it’s time for the world to view homosexuality the same way they view heterosexuality, as normal. There are thousands of music videos that are centered around heterosexual love and people are JUST NOW starting to really break the barrier of heterosexual relations being the only type of love represented in music video culture. This scene in the video made me more of fan of Dope Saint Jude’s music and I hope she continues to break barriers and open up more opportunities for South African Queer Artist to get their music heard across the world!
awordfromxandi