Sorry for the money shot upfront, but wow.
We’ve been anticipating dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei‘s heavy metal music and here it is: “Dumbass.” Or something worse, really, something the New York Times only refers to as “a rather vulgar Chinese word.”
Ai worked with Wong Kar-wai’s cinematographer Christopher Doyle, which is why the video is so immaculate. The room where the activist artist was imprisoned 80 days is a “inch-accurate” recreation. So is the constant surveillance, with uniformed government goons watching his sleep, eat, shower and shit. And then there’s the part where various sea creatures crawl out of his toilet and lingerie-clad ladies sashay all over the place.
The 55-year-old’s self-therapeutic foray into metal is actually better than expected. Adequately hard. A little avant garde around the edges. Very lyrical. Lyrical like this:
When you’re ready to strike, he mumbles about non-violence … [I] stand on the frontline like a dumbass, in a country that puts out like a hooker. The fields are full of fuckers, dumbasses are everywhere…
Fuck forgiveness, tolerance be damned, to hell with manners, the low-life’s invincible.
I really like the drag.
