Backup Dancers From Hell: Chris Brown - “Yeah 3X”

We start out in some alley where Chris’ tennis shoes make their debut, tromping along on the rain-slicked pavement. (We can see a manhole cover, but I really don’t think that’s important to this particular story.) The camera pulls back and we can see all of Chris as he trots about with a hoodie pulled over his head. (Is he just cold or has he done something bad again?) Brief shot of the side of a very tall building.

With no further explanation, we cut to a residential street where restless little kids are sitting on the stoop and just waiting for anything at all to happen in their tiny lives. (Two of the little girls are jumping rope, with one of them already barely wearing a hooker-training outfit. That’s nice.) Brief shot of two ladies sitting in a window. (Hey, if that little athletic strumpet down there is one of yours, go tell her to put some clothes on. She can have sex and ruin her life later.)

One of the little urchins suddenly yells “Man, I’m bored”, which magically jump-starts the opening credits for the video, as well as triggers a big moving van to come driving up. (All this excitement is interspersed with more shots of Chris in that alley, all dark and gloomy and wet. What’s up with that?) Back in the daylight, the happy Chris climbs to the top of the van and does an impromptu gymnastics routine while wearing snazzy clothing.

Another urchin suddenly yells “Hey, it’s Chris Brown!” (Ya think? Because, you know, this IS his video. Chances are pretty strong that he’ll make an appearance. You’re not so smart, you little brat.)

The sides of the van roll up, and homies with equipment quickly set up a concert venue. Chris hops off the van, and he is instantly joined by hundreds of people in the neighborhood as they all start line dancing. (This happens all the time, right? They must be in Brooklyn. Those people can’t keep still over there.) Simultaneously, Dark and Wet Chris starts singing and dancing as well. But he’s still in that alley, where nobody can actually see him and fans can’t flock up and worship him, so I’m not sure what the point is with this little side story.

Happy Chris decides that it’s the perfect time for a parade, so he leads his bouncing acolytes around a corner, where some guy in a lime-green suit almost steals the show with the pure shock value of his couture. Luckily, Chris manages to keep the focus on him by kicking up his dance steps and twirling around the street like a chipmunk on acid.

People in the parade are so excited by this burst of athleticism that some of them start doing back-flips to show their appreciation. Then some special dancers run in from somewhere and help Chris perform a lively routine that involves karate moves and pretending like you’re about to run a race at a track meet. (Dark and Wet Chris also ratchets it up into overdrive, bouncing off the walls of that creepy alley.)

Right in the midst of the revelry we have a shot of little 4-year-old boys grabbing their crotches and pumping their hips. Really? You’re teaching that to a 4-year old?

The dancing continues for some time, so everybody must have had a really good breakfast. At one point, Chris decides to stalk some woman walking down the sidewalk, so he follows her, still busting the moves, until she finally decides that he’s just too hyper for her and she prances off to get a bikini wax.

Chris doesn’t care. He instantly finds four girls wearing matching suspenders that think doing dance routines is the best thing ever. They perform some nice choreography while Chris belts out more of the song. Eventually, he can’t help himself and has to jump in the middle of their line. They accommodate him, because he’s the star and all, but you can tell they thought they were doing just fine by themselves and didn’t really need the extra firepower. Eventually the girls tire of this and march in synch off to one side while Chris dashes the other direction. Not sure where he’s going, but he’s in a hurry.

Oh, look, he’s headed to a place called “Popin Pete’s”. Lots of images zip through my mind at seeing this sign, but none of them prove to be true. Instead, Pete comes out of his little shop, wearing his own snazzy outfit, and shows us that the “popping” he does is all innocent and dance-related. He and Chris then get busy with some heavy choreography, which includes deep knee bends and what might be a tribute to Frankenstein getting really mad about those villagers with torches.

They pop and lock for quite a while, while Dark and Wet Chris continues to cavort in the alley where nobody knows his name.

Cut to Chris on a fire escape at night, trying to rally the constant throngs of groupies to dance like they’re Paula Abdul before whatever happened to her singing career happened. To keep the energy level high, somebody has turned on some huge searchlights to splash on the nearby buildings, as if these people needed any more incentive to tumble across the set like the only way to get to Heaven is to bounce high enough.

Some fool breaks open a water hydrant, and this inspires everybody to do back-flips in the gushing spray. (Because that’s really safe. Wonder how many scenes were cut from the video showing airborne chorus boys slamming into brick walls?) And that’s where we pretty much end up, with human cannonballs randomly flying through the air and everybody else dancing and making sure the jetting wetness makes them look all sleek and sexy without ruining their hairstyles. (Not sure what that one girl was doing hunching the asphalt, but at least she was smiling, so it’s all good.)

Chris and his colorful dance squad do one final routine wearing lots of pastel, then the closing shot is of Chris and his sweaty, heaving torso. No word on whatever happened to Dark and Wet Chris, but I’m going to assume that he found somebody to dry him off…


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Backup Dancers from Hell: Chris Brown featuring Tyga & Kevin McCall - “Deuces”

Well, the first scene has some big-ass titles informing us that “Collin Tilley Presents”, like this is going to be some fancy foreign movie where bitchy people make each other suffer about past indiscretions. But we know that’s not the case, because it’s a 4-minute music video, with guest rap stars, so there’s not going to be any intricate story or clever dialogue. Then we see Chris Brown’s name in even bigger-ass letters, and I get it. He wants us to think of him as an artist and not as someone who would get angry at Rihanna for changing her hair color yet another time.

We’ll see.

While the credits are still rolling (yes, there are more of them), we are shown three important plot points. One is that there is a woman walking along in one of those concrete waterway things, like where they did the car race in “Grease”. (I’m fully expecting Rizzo to walk in front of the camera, babbling about a defective typewriter.) She looks sad and is walking very slowly, so maybe she needs to speak to her doctor about her mood stabilizers. Other than that, we don’t know much about her, except that she’s wearing a flimsy shirt that is kind of pointless. We can already clearly see what she has to offer.

We also have three guys (I’m assuming this would be Chris, Tyga and Kevin) hanging out all street-like. We can’t tell if they’re also sad, or if they’re just bored, but all of them are staring at the ground like they just learned that they didn’t get any Grammy nominations this year. The final plotline centers around just Chris. He’s standing on the sloping wall of the concrete gulch and practicing “Karate Kid” moves.

Chris starts with the singing, sitting on a car and doing hand movements that remind me of my scary fourth-grade music teacher that always smelled like old baby powder. But he’s also singing in between high-kicks on the sloping wall, and the Sad Woman is still walking slowly. We start cutting between the three so we can understand that everybody is still doing what they’re supposed to do, and we shouldn’t get anxious about that.

Sudden close-up shot of Sad Woman’s eyes, then another shot of her smelling her hair. Maybe her sadness is coming from the fact that her apricot shampoo didn’t deliver on its promise to smell fruity and fresh. Then she turns and looks behind her, concerned about something, which is kind of confusing. If she’s trying to get away from somebody, shouldn’t she be running instead of just shuffling along and wondering where Olivia Newton-John was sitting during the car race?

Back to Chris and his boys, where we learn that every time somebody sings “deuces” in the song, they all hold two fingers up to the sky. Well, that’s really original. Was somebody actually paid to come up with that?

Oh look, now Chris is by himself in some tunnel, with the bright sky at the other end of the tunnel making a cute little box around Chris so that he appears in silhouette. He starts doing more of the odd poses, like he’s training for a Lady Gaga cover shoot.

And we go like this for a while, cutting between the guys sitting on the car, waiting for anything at all to happen in their lives, Chris in the tunnel channeling Liza Minnelli, and Sad Woman trudging through the gulch, not really getting anywhere. (Why does she insist on walking right where the thin layer of water is flowing, instead of on the 97% of the concrete that is DRY. Does she think there’s a prize at the end of this trail? Poor thing.)

It’s time for Tyga to do his solo, and he’s conveniently moved to another location so we can understand that someone else is singing now. He’s sitting on one of those concrete support beams, and he also likes to move his hands. This time I’m reminded of my Grandpa who would make those same motions before he lost his Italian temper and the Thanksgiving turkey would go flying throw the air, leaving a trail of cornbread stuffing as everybody dove under the table. Again.

Wow, Tyga sure has a long solo. (We get shots of Chris standing off in the background, reminding us that this is HIS video, people, don’t forget it. We also get more clips of Sad Woman on her mysterious journey, but I’m starting to not care if she ever gets where she’s going.)

Well, it seems we have a new development, as we start seeing snippets of the three guys walking down an alley while some hoopty car is bouncing along behind them. The boys seem to be having a lot more fun with this bit, strutting along, waving their arms, and grabbing their crotches. In fact, they almost crack a smile, which is forbidden if you want to retain your street cred, so we’re in dangerous territory here.

Tyga finally finishes up, and the film editor really ramps up the jump-cutting. We’re leaping all over the place in a frenzy, with the jumping only slowing down when Sad Woman’s breasts are in attendance. (And with the way Chris is bouncing off the walls in the tunnel, it’s safe to assume that he had Mexican for lunch, with extra jalapeños. What else would make a grown man jump in the air and do the splits like that?)

And here comes Kevin with his guest rap, and he’s really invested in that “holding up two fingers” thing, doing this at least 400 times during his cameo, shoving his fingers at us like one of the Three Stooges got lost in the San Fernando Valley. He seems to be really angry. Maybe because a certain woman’s appendages are getting more screen time than he is? And she’s not even singing. Or sure of where she’s at.

Shot of Sad Woman just standing there in the gulch, not even moving at all. (Well, to be fair, silicone never really stops moving, but that’s a minor technicality. Wait, maybe that’s why she’s following the water. She sprung a leak and is trying to figure out where it happened.)

Kevin goes on for a long time as well. In fact, between Kevin and Tyga, they’ve basically carried the whole song. Chris only warbled a few lines at the beginning, and then he ran off to play in that tunnel, whispering “deuces” in the background every once in a while. Maybe Chris just didn’t have enough time to learn all the lyrics, busy with that community service business like he was. Who knows.

Whoops, I just lied. Chris comes back and bellows some more, as we see shots of him ripping off his shirt in the tunnel and apparently tearing the thing into rags. (Did he pick up some fashion tips from Rihanna?) I guess the shock of wind on his nipples has a strong effect on him, because he suddenly does a back flip for no other apparent reason.

And that’s really it. As the song winds down, we jump-cut some more, with the guys and the gulch and the hoopty and Chris auditioning for Cirque du Soleil in that tunnel. Sadly, Woman With Breasts never makes it very far, still in the concrete riverbed, splashing endlessly along her trail of cosmetic tears and starting to lose her balance…

　

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