Video Review - Kwanza Jones + Pollo Del Mar "Made U Look"

It has become tradition in the past two years to review the videos that talented vocalist Kwanza Jones releases. Why stop now? This time around she has paired up with famous San Francisco drag queen Pollo Del Mar to bring us the video for "Made U Look", a bonus track off of her newest album "SUPERCHARGED". This video is like nothing you've seen from Kwanza before. Brace yourselves. She is indeed going to make you look -- probably twice.

A large chunk of the video, roughly the first half, takes place in a city's China Town. This has to be my favorite part of the video, mostly because it is the most amusing and makes the most sense. Kwanza and Pollo are wandering around the city in full on drag costume (although Ms. Jones is a woman, she's looking like one sickening queen!) while people are literally pointing, gasping, and wanting pictures with them. This is what the song is all about!

Each of them has a completely different idea in mind for what comes next.

Another major part of the video is, sadly, Pollo-less, but funny regardless. Here, we see Kwanza parking illegally, causing an angry metermaid to chase after her. She runs after her, but she can't catch up to her, and she escapes into her exercise class. The insanity doesn't stop there, though. She continues into the class, running amok on the equipment and interrupting many other people trying to do their workouts. Her dastardly deeds eventually caught up with her, placing her ticket right in that cleavage.

Bring it.

After this odd segment is over, we return to the two out on the street, only this time we have a costume change. It's sad that this portion only lasts for the majority of Pollo's rap because this is not only my favorite look for both of them, but also one of the few times were we see them interacting with each other as opposed to other people.

Natalie. Tootie.

The climax has to be when the two of them go out on the hunt. Armed with dart guns, the find themselves a cute boy, and start to run after him. This sequence is one of the most amusing things I've seen in a long time. The sight of the two of them sprinting angrily after a young man, only to hug him instead of shoot him had me rolling.

Never ignore a drag queen with a microphone... or a gun.

There are a few more looks to the video, including Kwanza in her "shopping" attire as well as looking like a business professional, but they were all tacked on at the end. Due to the short amount of time they are on screen, they don't leave much of an impression.

Ok, so maybe it did leave an impression.

Overall this video turned out much differently than I had imagined. The previous to videos in the "SUPERCHARGED" era have been very outrageous and shiny. This video was more of a candid street montage. Strangely, this works to the video's advantage. It literally shows people, both impressed and mortified, checking them out being too fabulous to ignore.

"But GaoSalad," you say, "Why don't you ever say anything negative about Kwanza?" Well for one she's amazing. Duh. But there are some cons to the video. Pollo, being her first video, didn't seem as used to being on camera as Kwanza, as made very evident in some of the scenes where Kwanza would be energetic while Pollo was the more calm and collected one (which after thought, may have been on purpose). The other big con would have to be in it's odd editing, having each segment isolated and non-repeating. By this I mean we saw one full scene, the another full scene, then another as opposed to seeing one scene spliced in between a few other segments. I guess that may be nitpicking, but you guys wanted cons, damnit!

Honestly, this video is pretty great. I had a blast watching Pollo, a dear friend of mine, snag the spotlight, and it is always a treat to see what crazy outfit Kwanza will come up with next. The song is hot, and it had a video made that fit it perfectly. What more could we want? Well other than the sexy boys from the "SUPERCHARGED" video to come back.




BONUS:

My only regret is that she didn't wear these glasses more.

You're MySpace, Pollo is Facebook, and Kwanza is on Twitter.

I wish we had people looking that fab in our local Walmart.