The Track

This song is El-P at his best. It’s layered like a cake, and with each bite a new flavor is revealed until your mouth is full of all the savory flavors of an El-P production.

The Coordinator

Brian Beletic is a fan of the hip to the hop, doing prior work for Dead Prez, C-Lo, and most recently Lady Sovereign. He also does a lot of commercial work and calls Smuggler his home. He does a great job here capturing the darkness and political tones that run rampant in the song. Even getting El-P looking extremely comfortable in front of lens, posturing nicely while he spits his rhymes and walks his talk.

The Motion

The video takes the title literally and showcases a reality where El Producto is constantly being confronted by danger in the form of a gun-to-the-head. It furthers the metaphor dropped in the song; that of a dangerous world where we are constantly in peril from ‘big brother’ and their ‘deep space 9mm’. I feel almost refreshed after seeing a rap video like this, in comparison to the bling-and-bitches style commercial rap. Not only is this a big fuck you to MTV in that regards, but also by the reliance of guns throughout; with MTV’s strict guidlines for what they consider allowable content, ‘Deep Space 9mm’ never saw an ounce of airtime. It must be agonizing and annoying to have such a great video with a meaningful message (and just because it features firearms), it gets displaced instead, by videos that showcase big tits, shaking asses, diamond grillz, drug use, and the lack of any moral values. Oh the irony! All hail our backwards society.

El-P – Deep Space 9mm, directed by Brian Beletic.

Quicktime 7 (iPod compatible: 42.5 MB)

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