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DJ Krust feat. Saul Williams - Coded Language

Music Video | 1999
ArtistSaul Williams
ArtistDJ Krust
ArtistSaul Williams (featuring)
SongCoded Language
DirectorBen Dempsey
DirectorJoe Dempsey
IntroNo
OutroNo
Sound MixStereo
Technical Specificationscolour - format unknown
Release date

Wiki

Synopsis

Saul Williams delivers a rapid-fire spoken-word performance inside a stark, industrial setting, while DJ Krust appears amid banks of television screens and fractured electronic imagery. The visuals mirror the track's collision of jungle rhythms, hip-hop rhetoric, and science-fiction atmosphere. Exploding televisions, abrupt edits, and futuristic styling turn the performance into a visual assault on passive media consumption. Rather than presenting a conventional narrative, the video builds a charged audiovisual space for Williams' call to reject mediocrity and decode the world around him.

Factoids & Trivia

  • The song appeared on Krust's 1999 album *Coded Language* and was also issued as a single. It received MTV airplay, helping bring the collaboration beyond the drum-and-bass audience.
  • Krust and Saul Williams were introduced through Giles Peterson and Paul Martin, who believed the New York poet's approach would suit the track.
  • Williams reportedly performed the lyrics from a large scroll when Krust first heard him in the studio. He then recorded the vocal in Bristol the following day, completing it in two takes.
  • The title came from Williams' lyric about deciphering a coded language. Krust adopted the phrase for both the track and the album.
  • The video is particularly associated with its exploding television sets and deliberately disorienting performance imagery, details Krust himself highlighted when discussing the clip.
  • The video was included in the Music Videos program at the 2001 South by Southwest festival.
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