"YNW Melly: Suicidal"

"I thought that we were meant to be, you took my heart and made it bleed", sings the American rapper YNW Melly at the start of the music video. The young man has clearly lost all hope after the breakdown of a relationship and life has lost all meaning for him. He is a man on the brink; as he drowns his sorrows in alcohol, he is tormented by suicidal thoughts.

The artist Tristan Zammit, who is known for his music videos and his cover and poster-art, designed "Suicidal" as an animated (Glossar: Zum Inhalt: Animationsfilm) single piece. The clip delves into Melly‘s mental world, unleashing an associative rush of pictures: hands or heads mutate into bottles. A tongue turns into a snake, catches fire and burns, turns into a skeleton and ultimately disappears in a brandy bottle. While the images occasionally play with art-historically established images such as the seductive serpent, other passages in the clip visualize the pictorial language of the lyrics. Throughout the clip, he succeeds in visualizing YNW Melly’s feeling of forsakenness and loss of control by depicting him against a black (Glossar: Zum Inhalt: Farbgestaltung) background or in the grip of countless hands. With its concentration on the mental perspective, the music video also builds a bridge to the rapper’s own narrative style, through which he has already addressed various mental health issues such as personality disorders or anxiety in first-person songs. Stylistically, the clip is strikingly similar in aesthetics to Anime, with a rougher, consciously unrefined style. The producer of the clip also cites the influence of the Anime series "Samurai Champloo" (Japan 2004 ff) and "FLCL/Furi Kuri/Fooly Cooly" (Japan 2000-2001)

The video clip can be used in ethics and religion class to discuss the extent to which YNW Melly and his music strike a chord with a young audience while talking about death wishes and suicide. Discussions should focus not just on taking the fears of the protagonist seriously, but also on demonstrating positive perspectives despite his hopelessness, exploring ways out of the crisis and identifying where he might seek help. While an analysis of the lyrics and attempts to write in the rap style would be ideal for English lessons, the associative Zum Inhalt: montage and the new scope for interpretation presented by the pictures, as well as the style of the animation (Glossar: Zum Inhalt: Animationstechniken), its origins and the effect of the images can all be addressed in art classes. In Music, the clip naturally demands a treatment of hip-hop and rap and its various forms. This can also include closer examination, in the context of the video clip, of YNW Melly’s biography. He is currently in jail awaiting trial for the murders of two friends (which is probably why he had to appear in “animated” form only in the video). What influence does the behavior of artists have on the reception their work? What ethical issues arise as a result? To what extent can we separate artists’ private lives from their creative work? These questions could also be addressed in a broader context, for example by including similarly controversial personalities.