While doing some research for a list I was compiling on songs about erectile dysfunction (check it on Noisey here), I stumbled across a video for a 2008 joint from 88 Keys, featuring Kanye West. Delicately titled Stay Up! (Viagra), the track turned out to be the lead single from 88 Keys’ madcap concept album The Death of Adam. On its own, the song isn’t anything special: soothing in a sort of half-assed way, but nothing memorable. And yet, over the past few days, I’ve clicked the little grey triangle on YouTube about 10 times. Why has an old clip for a forgotten album managed to worm its way into my brain?
Perhaps it’s the absurdity. If you’re too lazy to watch it a) sort your life out, sweet Jesus and b) the Stay Up vid follows ‘Clifford’ (88 Keys) and ‘Rufus’ (Yeezy), two elderly men, as they take their much younger honeys out on the town. They patronize a club, ride dirty in a white limo and eventually wind up in Playmates lingerie store, where they bump into an amazingly embarrassed Pete Wentz who mumbles something about shopping for ‘my lady’ when ambushed by the two girls accompanying Rufus and Clifford. Stay Up is bizarre. It’s brilliant as well, almost accidentally. Director Jason Goldwatch discussed the clip when it first premiered, stating:
‘The ‘Stay Up!’ (Viagra) video represents a new wave in the Music Video. It is a smash up of music video, reality television, and highbrow conceptual art. By taking some of the world’s biggest stars, who are normally surrounded by security and droves of crazed fans, and hiding their identity, we allow them to interact with the ‘real world’, unrecognized, unhindered, and free to walk alone – almost as if new people.’
I think he’s close to the truth. Stay Up feels special because it’s so low-key and humorous, which is only possible because of the anonymity given to the two main players by their costumes. This is a post-808s and Heartbreaks Kanye, a man who, by all intents and purposes, was now viewed as an artist only dealing in ‘heavy’ subjects, following the death of his mother and subsequent melancholic creative output. But in Stay Up he’s laughing, he’s joking and clearly having fun. Watch the Making Of video that was released as a teaser promo. We’re privy to two buddies hanging out who just happening to be filming a music video simultaneously. The tell dirty jokes, they stay in character and riff off one another and they get down to Justin Bieber in a hotel room. Watching Kanye and Keys bust a move dressed in twin sets and camel chinos is sort of beautiful: it’s unguarded and uncontrived in a way that you’d be hard pressed to find Yeezy acting nowadays.
This is not a lament for the Ye of yore, but rather an appreciation of the opportunity to briefly glimpse another side to the multi-faceted Kanye West. No one seems to remember this strange little episode in his exhaustively documented evolution as an artist, but they should. The Death of Adam might not have a place in hip-hop history based upon musical content, but the video for Stay Up deserves a spot as a sweet and, retrospectively, slightly sad record of a time when the Louis Vuitton Don could really let go. Oh, and because there’s a Kim Kardashian reference. That really seals the deal.
Orpheus Speaks 