No Disrespect, Official Video: Bringing a Family Collaboration to the Screen

The Life of a Modern Renaissance Man: A Video Journal, entry 23

The official video for No Disrespect is another look at a project that meant a lot to me because I got to make it with my sister, MRLY JADE.

This song was our response to the way people treat one another online, especially the casual disrespect that gets thrown around when someone feels safely hidden behind a screen. It has attitude. It's supposed to. Sometimes the appropriate artistic response to absurd behavior is to give it a beat and turn the volume up.

I enjoyed being able to shape the track and its presentation. Recording a song gives you one kind of control over the story. Creating its video opens another world of visual choices, timing, and performance. That combination is where I feel especially at home.

The thing I treasure most, though, is the family collaboration. We created something that represents both of us and captured a moment when our personalities met through music. Those projects become memories with a replay button.

This official-video upload and the other No Disrespect version are part of the same release. I would feature one of them on the blog and keep the other linked as an alternate upload. There's no reason to pretend that one great family moment happened twice just because YouTube gave it two URLs.