English rapper Dizzee Rascal may be backed by the almighty Pound and he's certainly savvy enough to know that the bling bling lifestyle is largely a myth, but even he probably wasn't quite expecting the impoverished state of the Houston neighborhood where they shot this video for "Where The G's At." On the micro, it's a pretty simple, but devastatingly powerful indictment of the usual hip-hop video displays of conspicuous consumption; Zooming out to the macro and you realize that Dizzee and guest rapper Bun B — who hails from Houston — are looking at the economic wreckage that's all too common the South. That said, the ending section goes in an entirely different direction when we learn that Dizzee and Bun B are there to close a deal for a pair of high-tech gangster specs that let the wearer detect True G's and snitches. It's a little bit sci-fi for my taste and basically obliterates my "deep" reading, but doesn't diminish the impact of the realness that precedes it. --> watch "Where Da G's" via MTV.com or YouTube.com
Dizzee Rascal "Where Da G's" (Definitive Jux)
Tom Campbell, director | Mike Torres, producer
