“Jesus” - An Exclusive Interview with Blu & Aaron Vazquez Feb 11, 2012
In August of 2011, prolific underground rapper/producer Blu (under the moniker “B”) released an under-the-radar song called “Jesus” produced by inventive LA-based button-pusher Madlib.
No one knew exactly what to make of the blatant references to Jesus in the samples (“he bought me, he paid for me, died for me at the cross, Father”) or the lyrics (“on my knees fell to God thank you from my broken heart”). Now, with the release of a video for the song directed by Aaron Vazquez, the question has come up again: what was the spiritual inspiration or concept of this song, if any?When the EP “Jesus” was first released, one reviewer wrote: “The religion-themed record is something [that] is missing in hip-hop and it’s refreshing hearing a rapper spitting about faith, while injecting some hard bars.”
But some fans disagreed that the somewhat cryptic song was explicitly about faith, or even about Jesus at all. One YouTuber commented: ”Jesus is just a metaphor, not everything hast to be literal”; another argued that some of the lyrics were “talking about capitalism.”
One YouTuber gave up interpreting it all together, saying: “Stop debating if there is a God or not. Just enjoy Blu’s great records and believe what you want.” One blogger shrugged in agreement: “Only God knows what that title is supposed to mean.”Naturally, hip hop heads were curious when the video - released 7 months after the song - double-downed on the Jesus-ness of the song. But the video’s emphasis on Jesus is - like the song’s - unexpectedly cool and composed. Even the opening epigraph is matter-of-fact about it: “Jesus does not appear in this video, but images of the lord are everywhere. Seek and ye shall find and by way Blu is not Jesus and neither are you, thank you.”Throughout the rest of the video, statues and paintings of religious figures are cut in with shots of a languorous Blu, roaming around LA with a crew behind him, crossing paths with street-dwellers and domino-players, little kids skipping and party people drinking. Little crosses are even spliced into a several frames, including one of a young woman tipping up a bottle of booze.
This isn’t the first time Blu has dabbled in religious references - his debut album with producer Exile, Below the Heavens, is packed with reflections on “the eyes of God,” spirituality, and the afterlife. But Blu has said very little about his own beliefs outside of the booth, except for a 2008 interview when he said:
“I have like an infatuation with the church. I’m not really religious…but its just what it does for people is pretty dope to me. I like to see people come in one way and leave another way…I talk about everything that’s important to me in my life and God gets the most reference.”
We wanted to learn more about this intriguing video from the creative minds behind it - so we got in touch with Blu and the director of the video, Aaron Vazquez aka “aaronisnotcool,” to shed some light on it for us.
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BWOB: There’s been a lot of debate online about what the song “Jesus” means or says - and the video has definitely intensified that debate. All you have said publicly about calling the song/album “Jesus” is, “He told me to.” Can you explain the song beyond that? What it is about?
BLU: ”The song came after the album title. When I decided I would call the album ‘Jesus,’ I knew I had to dedicate a song to the man. And I knew exactly what beat I wanted to use. I just opened my heart and wrote, which is rare because I’m such a critical writer, but this project in general was created for the love. I’m extremely grateful it rose far beyond just that.”Aaron Vazquez aka “aaronisnotcool” BWOB: How did you two link up to do the video?
AV: ”I met Blu while I was in California and helped him with Scienze and Versis’ video shoot for “Taking The Day Off.” From there we got to work a project together.”
BWOB: Why a “Jesus” music video now, 7 months after the album was released?
BLU: “Well, it was a personal album that was not suppose to be released, but after all the love and after we decided to press it, of course the next step is videos. We wanted vids for all the songs, but me knowing how many obligations I have I knew I had to narrow it down, so we decided ‘Jesus.’ We said if we don’t have a chance to make a follow up video, due to being bombarded with other projects, we have to make the first one count. And of course, the title track made the most sense.”AV: “We wanted to shoot the ‘Jesus’ video around the same time we shot the ‘My Sunshine’ video. But I’m from Austin, so with the limited time we had up there we couldn’t shoot both in the time we had. Personally, I’m happy it came out when it did because I really felt like people forgot about the album and this video brought everything back to the forefront.”BWOB:Since Below the Heavens, Blu’s music has taken a direction toward a more raw, in-the-moment aesthetic - doing tracks in one take, leaving the mix very unpolished, etc. How did that influence the direction of the video?
AV: “This is a great question because the music had a lot to do with the video’s look came out. When I first started shooting video, the emphasis was to get the crispest, cleanest, and most epic visuals. For this video I wanted the video to feel like how the album cover looked and how the song felt. That’s why there are scenes with just the B hat just like on the album cover. The colors were meant to bleed and there was a real grittiness, and somewhat vintage look I wanted for the video. That look came from the music.”BWOB: There’s some interesting choices that were made in editing the video – including splicing crosses into multiples frames and cutting back and forth between you and religious statues, paintings, and phrases. Can you explain how some of those visual choices came about?
BLU: ”We just thought it was all relevant, to show people its not just me promoting ‘the good name.’ Signs of the Lord are everywhere, all you have to do is open your eyes.”
AV: “We wanted to have some subliminal things going on. Some are more obvious than others, but there are 7 single spliced frames within the ‘Jesus’ video. Biblically, the number 7 is a very important number. Throughout the bible there are seven sons, seven days, churches, sins, months, times, etc., but its meaning is completion. So we wanted 7 in there. I got the idea of splicing frames from Fight Club.”
BWOB: What’s the story behind that opening line: “Jesus does not appear in this video but images of the lord are everywhere, seek and ye shall find and by the way, Blu is not Jesus and neither are you”?
BLU: ”People thought I made a record as ‘Jesus’ like I was playing a character - and I was, he was “Lucky”, not Jesus, and lucky to know Jesus at that.”Not a bad reminder - or proposition.
Speaking of the good news - Blu is now working on two new albums produced by Exile and Madlib, and Vazquez indicated to us that we can look forward to more Blu / aaronisnotcool collaborations in the future.
