“abOUT Me ft. Loud Lemons” Story & Impact

From the grant-winning artist, producer, rapper, and educator, Breezy, supported by director Gil Sagi and funded by Musicboard Berlin, comes a new music video venture. Atypical from your average hip hop video, the official abOUT Me feat. Loud Lemons video reads more like a short psychological horror film that leads viewers on a journey through the conundrum of the mulatto, or person with one Black (or dark-skinned) and one white parent. 

The film addresses many of the issues faced by Black people today such as the constant pressure to conform to the dominant culture. Through a timeless lens of chilling actions that condition and wear down the human mind, harkening back to Stanley Milgram-style psychological experiments while simultaneously maintaining a Jordan Peele-esque viewing experience, abOUT Me feat. Loud Lemons leads us toward a deeper understanding of the complexities Breezy exhibits of the mulatto identity.

Breezy was heavily influenced and inspired by Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us films and the original tv series, The Twilight Zone for the concept of the video. When director Gil Sagi brought the setting of a torture scene to the table, it seemed effective to use elements of “whiteness” as torture techniques to symbolize the way Black people (especially Black people with obvious white heritage) are conditioned to conform and are gaslit if they don’t fall in with the ways of society.

Breezy’s work involving the mulatto identity had begun in 2018 with the project Tragic Mulatto EP, and the themes persisted in the following mini album, MuLATTO MADness in 2019. After being rejected from Musicboard Berlin funding the previous year, Breezy persisted with a stronger application for the 2021 round and was awarded a budget of 6000 euros. Once the production team was assembled, the video was filmed and produced by the team over the summer, materials reviewed in the fall, and edited this winter.

Breezy began collaborating on projects in Berlin with writer and director Gil Sagi for the “Low Power Mode” music video filmed in 2018. In 2020, they ran a crowdfunding campaign to create a music video for the song, “LOOKin for,” which was shot at the historic Kühlhaus Berlin. The music video for “abOUT Me ft. Loud Lemons” is Breezy and Sagi’s latest work. 

“abOUT Me ft. Loud Lemons” Understanding

Key Definitions 

Mulatto - usually offensive : the first-generation offspring of a Black person and a white person*

Light-skinned - having a light olive to medium brown complexion*

especially : being a Black, Latinx, Indigenous, mixed-race, or other person of color with such a complexion*

Double-consciousness - “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity”**

*Merriam Webster

**W.E.B. DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches

“abOUT Me ft. Loud Lemons” Resources

Listen: Tragic Mulatto EP '18  

MuLATTO MADness '19

Read: Black With (Some) White Privilege (article)

W.E.B. DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches

Mat Johnson’s Loving Day (book)

Watch: The Loving Generation  (short docuseries)

Little White Lie (personal documentary)

“abOUT Me” Background

The first moment I saw my racial identity represented in the media was on a late Sunday morning in 2018. I flipped through the New York Times newspaper and found a front cover full-page spread of a young woman with a big curly afro and light skin like me. The accompanying article written by Anna Holmes was entitled, “Black With (Some) White Privilege.” My anti-racism work had begun long ago, but it wasn’t until that moment at 30 years old when I saw myself racially reflected in others’ stories in the newspaper that I decided to investigate.

“Mulatto,” is a historically derogatory word which means child of one Black parent and one white parent. I wanted to know the good, the bad, and the ugly. I learned about the “tragic mulatto” trope used in the 1800s. It referred to the circumstance of the child whose plantation master father had impregnated its enslaved mother. The child would still work under slavery, but would enjoy privileges such as working and sleeping in the main house, instead of out in the fields. How could understanding the word “mulatto” help me understand myself, my internalized racism, as well as my multi-faceted yet quickly-checked privileges? 

Film director Lacey Schwarz created another work that helped me understand my racial identity in 2018. A four-part docuseries called, “The Loving Generation” about the generation of people who grew up right after the civil-rights case banning interracial marriage, Loving v. Virginia, was overturned in 1967 at the US Supreme Court. Listening to a large group of public successful figures only a few years older than me who also grew up with one Black and one white parent changed the game for me. They talked about how complex and confusing it was. Finally, my feelings about the struggle of this racial identity were affirmed.

That lit the fire under my depressed butt to create Tragic Mulatto EP. Then came MuLATTO MADness. My music and art is about the reclamation of a word and identity that encompasses a complicated and unique past and future. I hope to create something that the child of a dark-skinned and a light-skinned parent can latch onto. I’m building the world that those who feel like they’re in-between and don’t fit in can connect with.

Video Shoot Gallery

abOUT Photos

Please contact imfeelinbreezymgmt@gmail.com for additional image requests.

For annotated photos in large resolution, click here

For the “abOUT Me ft. Loud Lemons” press kit pdf download, click here