Elucid – Automatic Writing (Video)

Directed by Ali “Boombaye” Santana. I’ll let E Gutta describe it:

If I learned one thing from the ‘Automatic Writing’ video experience it would be that there are only two ingredients necessary to accomplish any goal; vision and determination. Somehow the universe throws you in the path of whatever else required for the rest of your journey. This project was a true labor of love and testament to our resourcefulness. What started as late night random idea tossing via instant message (oracles, drapetomania, solar eclipses?!?) quickly morphed into a 4 page video treatment. Shot intermittently during the early months of 2009, without a penny’s investment, Boombaye and I trooped through the streets and subways of New York City in true hip hop/guerrilla style shooting illegally on lo-fi equipment without a proper permit. Five months and a number of sleepless nights later, I’m ecstatic to present this piece to the world. Automatic Writing’s message of self reliance and empowerment resounds even more so with the accompanying imagery.’Close your eyes, it feels different here/ Sign of the times, almost in the clear/I see spaceships on Flatbush, calling me back home/ Resetting the clock to begin again’Cuing inspiration from my personal musical trinity of Sun Ra, George Clinton, and Afrika Bambaataa, ‘Automatic Writing’ serves as a statement to the building of a new world. A future world. A better world. The idea of midnight trains, chariots, and even spaceships carrying oppressed people away from their suffering are common themes in American Black music. As a people robbed of their past, now living in the present as aliens in a foreign land that constantly seeks to disparage their identity, we have no choice but to embrace the future and the promise it brings.

• Posted in Hip Hop, Video |

  Tags: elucid, lessondary, vimeo