STL GLD’s block isn’t just a street — it’s a damn “pressure cooker.”
The Boston hip-hop crew released their new music video “My Block” last Friday (August 7), sharing a glitched-out, gritty view of what it’s like to step outside in their neighborhood. The new track and vid are the group’s first releases since their 2019 album The New Normal.
“We approached making this video with the means we had available to us,” The Arcitype tells Vanyaland. “A lot of the footage in the video is shot on our phones, stylized on my phone with glitch apps, and I ended up editing it together for us. Before we started, we discussed how the video wasn’t going to be a pristine, crispy video, but instead more of a visual art piece. We reached out to a friend, and longtime collaborator, Matt Watkins, to add some additional animation layers to help bring the video to life a bit more. I think the results are fitting to the nature of the song, and the tone we want to portray at this moment. Nothing about this year is easy or pretty, so this video needed to capture and reflect that.”
While the new visual errs on abstract, Moe Pope’s lyrics cut deep with clarity. “The devil is still lying and got a boot on my neck,” he raps over footage of Minneapolis police offer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd.
“New Music during this time is a relief and a blessing,” Pope shares on Instagram. “This was written right at the very beginning of covid 19 after a painfully divisive few years… this was a build up.”
“For me, hip-hop is that escape… it’s a place to shed pain, to cry out loud or scream… this is the energy I needed to get out my front door every day for most of my life ….there is no lie here …. my block scary … this world is scary … but I’m gonna survive and make you fear me if I got to.”
Step inside STL GLD’s reality below.
***