The March 31, 1994 Method Man / Ghostface Freestyle caught massive global attention on the Zoo York Mixtape skate video. As members of the Wu-Tang Clan, the two MCs are part of one of the most impactful Hip Hop groups of all time. Method Man and Ghostface Killah's unreleased freestyle from The Stretch and Bobbito Show in 1994 is remixed by The M19's Band and given an official music video directed by Ali Santana.
A pelican’s subtly surreal arpeggioing of limbs is our entry into the visual for Nathan Schram’s 'Oyelo'. The aching insistency of Schram’s viola underscores this Kafka-esque flight into immediate intensity. From this image of a single bird, a haunting journey of individuation begins.
Multidisciplinary Artist, Ali Santana’s strobe-like animation creates fragmented patterns that move in a frenetic kaleidoscopic choreography. What seems at first disordered chaos gradually takes on the infinite lucidity of fractals, conjuring the intuitive mathematics of murmuration formations, African villages, cornrowed hair, and constellations.
Tension crescendoes as we move between light and dark; the sharp and the ephemeral; smoky and substantial. We are ultimately released from glitchy unreality to a colorfully undefined and beautiful beyond, and we fly in an astral network, ancestrally guided, before returning home.
This video art was created by Ali Santana as an artist in residence at Signal Culture.
In this music video, Spec Boogie pays tribute to his hometown, Bed Stuy: one of Brooklyn's most culturally diverse neighborhoods in the midst of rapid gentrification. Shot, directed and edited by Ali Santana, this film captures the people, historical relics and businesses that may soon be gone due to economic displacement. Ali's use of community portraits, rhythmic editing and motion graphics, showcase the colorful and vibrant neighborhood that he'd like to remember, while vintage photos offer a touching glimpse into the neighborhood's past. Directed by Ali Santana. ©2010 Photos by Robert Cave Sr. Track produced by Von Pea of Tanya Morgan. Featured in: The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts 'Gentrification of Brooklyn' exhibit. www.MoCADA.org
