Model on cover : Miranda Chan – Dancer
January 2020, Montréal. In a great white empty room, a dozen people getting busy to organize the shooting of the videoclip « Hey Boy » by Random Recipe x Miss Me. Random Recipe is a queer montréal band existing in the international musical scene for more than ten years now and they have embarked on this adventure with the not-less-experienced Miss Me, who’ve been working as an artist on the wall of the world for almost a decade also. The clip, produced by the Montreal company 16pads gathered a team of 80% women with two men handling the camera under the direction of Miss Me. The clothes were brought by Montreal’s finest fashion crazyness designer Lolita Thug.
Miss Me : « I met the girls from Random Recipe in Bologna (Italy)while I was working on a project with the women of Cheap festival. It was a big feminist project. The girls from Cheap took me to a random recipe concert and when we got there they said “how come you never m et then, they are from montreal”. So we met that evening. I saw them on stage and was mesmerized by their power and energy, sensuality and their freedom. It was spectacular. We actually became friends before anything. One day they came to me and proposed to do something together. “”What about a video?”. It was a challenging idea because I had never done anything like this but as challenges tend to scare me but I tend to not let fear stop me and force myself to do it and give the best of me.«
Random Recipe : « After spending almost 3 hours hanging out, exchanging thoughts and philosophies about our world views, we quickly came to a conclusion that both projects shared very closely the same visions and values about life. A subject that especially struck us was that of Wxmen’s Rights & Empowerment, and our song Hey Boy could not be of more relevance to this matter. Miss Me was immidiately touched by this single, the same way we were when we wrote this song, and that is when we felt the need and urge to combine both our artistic worlds into one main masterpiece, centralizing and opened exponentially eyes, ears and souls around us. A subject this strong Needed to feel like it was brought up by a community of people, and this was our main goal from beginning to end of this music video.«
This 100% Montréal crew gathered around the duo of Random Recipe and the street art figure Miss Me in order to shoot the video with the participation of 7 of the best dancers in Montreal, models and womxn and kids from the everyday life. The goal was to show both the diversity of humans being touched by street harassment but also the strenght of our bodies meeting one another, the power of our gazes and the overwhelming truth hidden in our bodies.
This project overall is a feminist call to peace and surrender to the power of womxn who have stuff to say out loud. It is also a call to inclusivity : invite all women in your gatherings : may they be white, black, asian or native, invite queer folks, trans women and trans men, invite disabled folks and people who can’t find their space to speak our their truth. It is a call to say ‘hey boy what you doing ? » when you see one doing shit in the street. It is a give out of strenght and powerful positivity in the acceptance of the sadness we hold inside as womxn of all kinds, knowing that this shitty systems continue to authorize violences and discriminations to happen.
Aesthetically, the art direction was taken over by Miss Me whose work centers around womxn, our bodies and our speech. Miss Me is a feminist artist working with collage, has has a passion for dance and moreover for everything that touches the way womxn can express. Through the use of the black and white constrast extended in Miss Me aesthetics and in the videoclip, we approach subtly the irony of this world : either we’re angels or we’re demons, we’re victims or agressors. Out there exists a dichotomy of visions in regards to sexual violences and how womxn live it.
Random Recipe : « This music video is for everyone. Womxn pull from it a sense of empowerment, but also of solidarity. I think it triggers something really emotional for many womxn and it’s almost surprising to see a music video in 2020 move people the way a film can. The video is also of course for boys and men, our allies, because I think it can communicate in a poetic/emotional way something about the female experience better than what stories or facts can sometimes. The power of art and its capacity to communicate beyond words. «
I’m not an ornament, I’m a monument, like the woman on freaking 20 dollar bill
So honor it, and it really kills me that you think I’d ever wanna be a princess not even a queen
And I guess I’ve ever since then hated Halloween, boy you ready for a glimpse of society I dream of.
The song « Hey Boy » by Random Recipe highlights the reality of hypersexualization and the power of words on the psyche, the fact that at a very young age girls and kids get used to being seen as sexual beings even before understanding what sexuality is and what part it really takes in our societies.
Random Recipe : ‘Beyond the results and the art piece, its the people, specifically womxn, that were brought together, from such different backgrounds and moments in life, to create something beautiful and meaningful. MissMe is not only an incredible human being and artist, her work ethic and the way she invests herself fully in a project is quite inspiring. It’s also really really cool for us to have a music video for a song released in 2018 create a buzz today. We live in a world where things don’t last or become quickly obsolete. We tend to dispose of art, especially music, very rapidly today, and it affects the way the art and messages behind music penetrates society. Random Recipe’s mindset likes to challenge that, so this music video is pretty rewarding in that sense.’
Miss Me: ‘During the preparation of the shooting, challenges were dealing with my fears, dealing with my inner voice telling me that this was not something that I knew how to do. You know, the usual things that a lot of us encounter. Also, being able to find some funding, finding a team, people we wanted to work with. Basically creating a whole scenario piece by piece and producing it wholly. The challenge was mostly my insecurities and being as good as the song was. The song really means a lot to me and I thought it was so good and important and I didn’t wanna fail the beauty and the power of the song.‘
The songs also highlights the fact that ALL WOMXN shall be respected as sacred beings, that our lives are no jokes and that we ought to get the rights we deserve sooner than later. This meeting of style trully signifies something strong in terms of how it was done and the target it wants to shoot straight at : boys and girls, you’re equal, womxn and men shall not be at war but men honnestly have to stand the f**** up in order to help out sisters of any kinds.
You don’t like the smell of bras burning
We don’t like you selling short our earnings
You don’t like our body hair growing
We don’t like your creepy ass groping
You can hold the door as we march through
Or you can be doormat we’ll march over you
Don’t try to lock the door n lock us in though
Coz we can always flo through the window
The lyrics of « Hey Boy » could not be clearer, they express the wishes the band has in regards to equality. Suppressing the oppressive norms such as wearing bras or being hairless just because we’re womxn. They also make it very clear that WE ARE STRONG HUMAN BEINGS and that locking us up or suppressing our freedom will only make us more determined to fight for our rights.
Miss Me : I got so much beautiful things from this experience. I was amazed by the team. A huge team of womxn and two men. A beautiful energy and peace that we created through my vision, and the trust we all had in each other. It was beautiful. The energy that was built those two days of filming, this exchange we managed to put in place. The empowerment and love was just beautiful and something I’ll cherish forever.
It was trully a wonderful energy pull and a great moment to be a part of. Thank you.
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