J425 Recommends: the One Trick Pony is Back
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J425 Recommends: the One Trick Pony is Back
The biggest star many haven’t heard of, the David Fincher of the 5 min format, the rapper who never once swears: the genius of NF.
J425 Culture is our initiative to send you something very, very good from contemporary culture maybe once a week or so. The category is a fit in our community newspaper genre — think of the Thursday & Friday Lifestyle sections in print papers of yore. And our commitment is to only send you stuff which is both worth your time and as we said before very, very good. Today we recommend this six minute study of the great NF.
“Born efficient, got ambition, sorta vicious — yup, that's me… …Unsubmissive, the king of mischief, the golden ticket, rare sight to see.”
- NF
NF is filming in Tennessee this weekend ahead of a March album drop. The light-averse iconoclast who famously doesn’t know if he’s making movies or music videos possesses the ability & fan base to sell out stadiums from Brisbane to Calgary and has built a one-of-a-kind career in which his albums, songs and music videos propel a storyline forward on a narrative timeline that now spans a decade. But that’s for the NF mega fans. Today we’re considering just one point in his career, the video for “Clouds”.
The Michigan rapper, often pigeonholed incorrectly as a Christian artist (more like an artist who is a Christian) is partially responsible for a newer generation of stars who speak openly of mental health issues: one of our previous culture picks Ren - “Hi Ren” is definitely derivative of NF - check out “The Search” you’ll see what I mean.
And despite the aforementioned narrative timeline threading his catalogue together, his artistry has many single entry points - including 2021’s “Clouds”, a marvel of cinematography which is the focus of today’s culture recommendation.
But today, we’ve picked not an NF video — but instead a filmmaker discussing an NF video. It’s a little more bang for your buck.
You’ll get the video, an appreciation for the visual storytelling…and maybe an artist to subscribe to ahead of that impending album drop. And if you’d like to watch the “Clouds” video in its entirety sans film commentary, it’s included below.
You can follow NF at (@NFrealmusic) across all platforms.