Mick Jenkins Paints a Powerful Portrait of Toxic Black Masculinity in Video 'Smoke Break Dance'

SMUGGLER director, Andre Muir, presents different vignettes of characters all chasing a high, only to find themselves eventually succumbing to them. The through-line between all the powerful vignettes is their portrayal of different forms of toxic black masculinity, which ultimately drives the characters to seek escapism.  

The project not only showcases Andre’s visionary storytelling but also demonstrates his commitment to exploring important social issues. He aspires to spark change, encourage self-reflection, and promote a more inclusive and compassionate understanding of masculinity in all its forms.

“The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.” - Bell Hooks

Director Andre Muir said of the project, “What inspired my idea was the literal song title. Smoke Break Dance. A smoke break. You take them, normally at work. You're taking this break, this distraction from this other thing in your life that you think sucks, a job, school etc. But this little break is probably worse for you than that job could ever be. The song made me think about the different vices or “highs” we use to escape reality. But they can be double-edged swords as well. Sometimes the things we do to avoid and distract from our reality to gain some semblance of control ends up controlling us. I wanted to create a narrative video that showed different characters doing just that, only I wanted to focus these distractions around what I think is the root cause of a lot of vices for men, which is black toxic masculinity.  Whether it's drugs, thrill seeking, partying, doing acts of bravado in front of the camera for followers, they're all just these negative manifestations of our expectations of how a man should conduct himself. 

I came into film more focused on narrative, and the actual visual itself was never something I was too fixated on. With this music video I really wanted it to be an exercise in frame composition and I was really proud to see what myself and my director of photography Brandon Hoeg, were able to do with the type of budget restraints we had.

Working with Mick is always great, he’s a great collaborator in the sense that he’s really open to ideas. It doesn’t have to be the type of video where the artist has to be in your face non-stop, he cares about the visual and meaning behind it, and that's way more important to him than just being in front of the camera. I also think we have similar sensibilities when it comes to subject matter so it's always great working with him. I pitched him what I got from the song, and we immediately clicked on themes and what was most important to portray visually. 

In my work, I make a deliberate effort to focus on the Black experience, and that was my intention with this video as well. I aimed to zero in on black toxic masculinity specifically. However, witnessing the public lynching of Jordan Neely, seeing how no one helped him but instead they’d rather record it on their phones, it made me realise that we all suffer from a larger culprit: patriarchy in general. This realisation led to a last minute inclusion of an additional scene at the end of the video, highlighting this broader perspective. As these people egged this man on, as he sucked the life out of Jordan, I’m sure he was aware of these cameras, I’m sure he thought he was a hero, as he did what he was “trained” to do, I’m sure he thought he was doing what a man would do in that situation.”