City of God’s Son by Kenzo Digital
City of God’s Son by Kenzo Digital
A few days ago, El Miz tipped me off on Kenzo Digital’s City of God’s Son (click to download the project for+ free).
Then my little brother, Nicholas Alfonso Mason, AKA The Jaguar, emails me telling me that his friend (and mine) worked on City of God’s Son.
I just checked out the trailer. Looks crazy. And dope. And crazy dope.
“City of God’s Son” Trailer – Kenzo Digital – www.CityofGodSon.com
Kenzo is the apprentice of world-renowned video artist Nam June Paik and has had films screened at both the TriBeCa and Mill Valley Film Festivals. He served as Director of COGS and co-wrote the project with Academy Award-nominated writer/director Victor Quinaz.
COGS (City of God’s Son) is quite unique. It can be described as an epic, a musical, a soundscape, a movie for the blind, an art installation and a coming-of-age story. Kenzo also refers to COGS as “viral musical sound art.” COGS is a blend of multiple media and art genres and it explores new grounds for unconventional storytelling and ultimately gives rise to what Kenzo terms the world’s first “Beat Cinematic”. Kenzo arrived at this term by combining various mediums including 3D audio, multiple musical genres, and sound bites. Using some of hip-hop’s and film’s greatest talents (including Jay-Z, Nas, Biggie Smalls, Samuel L. Jackson and Joe Bataan), his aim is to create his own cross-medium ensemble cast, and out of many mediums, to create something epic and new.
Hip-hop is the perfect choice for this because, just like COGS itself, hip-hop is a genre created using only the resources available, and re-contextualizing them to create something bold and innovative. In effect, Kenzo aims to redefine remix culture, through creating a Quentin Tarantino-esque piece of pop art that uses 90’s hip-hop culture as its palette. More than just a remix or mash-up, COGS comments on the icon of the gangster, the media obsession with this character, and its function within hip-hop culture. An homage to arguably hip-hop’s most culturally potent era, COGS explores the mythology behind both musical icons and gangster film icons alike, and creates a world in which the two co-exist. COGS is part Sin City, part Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio programming, and part Nas’ Illmatic. Essentially, COGS ties these works together by playing off of the listener’s familiarities with these genres and re-contextualizing them within a coming-of-age crime drama set in a mythical, jungle metropolis.
Set in a world of magical realism, the story explores the relationship between father and son and the struggle to define themselves in a world where their futures appear pre-ordained. COGS riffs on the icon and myth of the gangster used generously throughout the history of hip-hop and American pop culture. The story embraces both the dichotomy of such societal reverence and media obsession with the moral quandary such a lifestyle calls into question. By using the genre’s most influential artists and manipulating them into characters that humanize and, at times, contradict their media persona, COGS aims to dissect concepts of machismo and push the envelope for using music as a more directly narrative medium. It also interweaves many classic crime films into the sound design and score of the piece, melding together the world of film with music into a new format of super visceral soundscape and musical narrative. In all of this there is the unique invention of self-proclamation; artists labeling themselves, touting beefs with other artists, and challenging the status quo to a sort of existential shout-out session. By exploring these themes within a familiar story structure COGS hopes to dissect the phenomena and redefine remix culture.
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK
The Guide to Getting More Out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
