OK Cobra "I Quit (I Give Up)"

The third (of four, possibly) in our series of videos this week is "I Quit (I Give Up)" by OK Cobra off the recently released Delirium Tremens (Urbnet), although, you probably gathered all that based on the title of the post.

So, while I don't know much about OK Cobra, despite the fact that they list London as one of their hometowns, I do know I thing or two about Rap videos being an avid viewer of MuchMusic's RapCity circa 1999 - 2004ish. During that time I watched many, many, many, many, rap videos, and given that experience I'm fairly confident in asserting that OK Cobra has not produced a rap video. There's no scantily clad booty shaking women, no slow motion posse shots, no cityscape, no graffiti, no break dancing, and no XXXL sports jerseys... huh.

I'd go so far as to say that "I Quit (I Give Up)" is the antithesis of the modern rap video. It's a single man, fields, rocks, trees, some type of traditional Vietnamese hat (I think), and it's incredibly introspective. I think it might be the literal, visual, embodiment of Backpack Rap -- in as far as, at the beginning of the video he's wearing a backpack and gets in some type of motor vehicle and appears to be traveling around for much of the four minutes.

And Backpack Rap, if that is, in fact, a genre or sub-genre of music, has the tendency to get preachy or overbearing or douchey. This video, however, is not any of those things. It feels like an honest expression of someone who is just fed up and wants to escape, and if you've ever felt like that, I suspect you're going to enjoy the video above. Hopefully, this is a good omen as I'm about to give Delirium Tremens a spin...

[mp3] OK Cobra - I Quit (I Give Up)