bE!Elect x Crying Entity
http://www.nrmagazine.com/barringtonelect
Morning dew collects on angel wings, the willow tree stirs and eyelids flutter first. He recalls falling asleep to a song as tears lined his eyes. The lyrics being sung finally told a story he could sing back and call them, truth. He opened his mouth, nothing came out, it was loud.
Here nor there, wearing silence and a wig, barefoot. On foreign shores, onlooking gazes cast shadows to hide behind, lurking, staring, gawking but
do not see; the way your vulnerability flaps in the wind, you reach to adjust your wig, fingertips fondling coarse, synthetic strands of an assumed alter-ego whose truth they mistake for bruises. For a minute you can feel your baldness reach from roots that no longer grow, barren but seeking reunion with something it once knew. Some ask if you’re trying to be someone else, you say only for tonight.
At any point in time you could grab his hand and stop him, the still image fixed, the music breathing steadily awaiting a chance to find its voice, the mystery man waits in the wings not because he is hiding but because he is waiting to spread them. He is a lover, he is burning, yet there are no flames, only firestarters waiting to be lit. He is only a reflection, he waves back or is that smoke, dancing? There is a reason he knows the song you sing but you forget why he knows it and why he gives you a match.
Tender but imbued with gravity, BarringtonELECT’s soulful ballads invoke intimacy with a symmetry of soul on his debut album, Crying Entity. Released in 2018 during time in which Barrington was navigating heartbreak, his reality was raw and he began to build a bridge between himself and the spaces he wished to occupy. Contrary to the ways in which artists normally release a project and quickly move onto the next, Barrington chose to pay homage to the album with a three-part video. The video, which took three years from genesis to release, progressed from a staged portrait to a voyeuristic look into Barrington’s day to day of creating as he marinates in every felt emotion. Oscillating between striking visuals in locations ranging from Paris, to Jamaica, to his aunt’s living room, the concepts are his own and he brings his community along with him as they appear alongside him or frame him behind the camera. Along the way as he reflected, he found a new direction to move in. As Crying Entity took a backseat, transparency put one hand on the wheel and the other continues to run through the tresses of that new wig.
Lindsey: Upon releasing the video, you stated that one regret might’ve been not expressing your vulnerability in the way you wanted to in regards to the candidacy exposed. Now that you’ve released the video and it’s kind of out of your hands and out of your control per se, I'm wondering if you can clarify the ways in which you see your video now and what it really means to expose vulnerability.
Barrington: Chris Turiello initially filmed the BTS footage for archive purposes. During the edit he slipped in a few clips and I bugged out. I was alarmed, I enjoyed the edit, but was fearful of breaking down the wall letting others in. We debated on it and I was convinced to let the story play out in its rawest form, showcasing the beauty in vulnerability. Giving the audience insight outside of the artist, the creative process, and our messy commentary. Grace Jones’ documentary Bloodlight and Bami directed by Sophie Fiennes, helped me realize I was defeating the purpose of the film by withholding our truth. I’m confident in the final product and feel this film is a testament of artists in their safe haven.
Lindsey: As a part of the audience, we take for granted the decision making process of the artist. I think there's a difference between confession and self exposure and I feel like a lot of this video maybe leans more so to the side of confession through choice almost. Can you walk us through what you think the differences are between the two?
Barrington: Confession seems verbal and self-exposure is more of an action. Filming in Jamaica at 6am with 18in Brazilian and a reptile tuxedo crew neck - was self-exposure at it’s finest. In regards to confession my living room jam session with Ezra Bloom and Rameion Acki spoke volume. We started vibing and took a raw, unfiltered, approach with the music. I was hopeless romabreakup on edge after a breakup! Listen out for these tracks featured throughout the film.
Lindsey: To give a little more context into the whole of Crying Entity itself, the album came out in 2018 and the making of this video not only navigates the album but the passage of time, sense of place and becoming. You’ve mentioned before this idea of marinating in every emotion and that's powerful because it invites time, it invites a sense of patience which seems to go against how we are expected to create nowadays in terms of pace. I imagine that there was so much growth that maybe we don't see.
Barrington: In an effort to pay homage to the album I took on the challenge to produce a film. I took time to educate myself on the filming process and how to convey my vision to the team since I rarely use treatments or mood boards. I’ve grown with communicating creatively and understanding I’m not the only artist who fails to live by today’s social climate.
Lindsey: There's something really honest about this whole process and on the album, I know a lot of the songs deal with themes of love and heartbreak. Can you give us a synopsis of what the album meant to you then and what it means to you now given the closure that this video provides? Artistic projects often are synonymous with chapters in our lives.
Barrington: I was in a complicated relationship during the writing and recording process, I was in love, but dude was interested in risky business. He became unsympathetic causing me to doubt myself, triggering certain feelings I wasn’t ready to face. I removed myself from the situation and blamed it on karma. I bagged my emotions and dropped them into the album. [While being numb to the fact I was born on February 13th and once again short of love.] I’m proud to say my current stage with the album is liberating. I’ve had time to heal, enjoy the album, and see my vision come to fruition.
Lindsey: Yeah because it's like you create for yourself, but then like when you decide to release the work it becomes for other people, you know?
Barrington: Yes, similar to an olympic diver. Everybody’s sitting perched with their chin up ready to judge your performance.
Lindsey: Did you have any moments of doubt when you were doing all of this, going through different seasons in your own life at the same time?
Barrington: Yes, there were definitely moments of doubt that forced me to retract, fighting myself to stay in the game. I struggled with if I was doing enough creatively, if my resources were valuable and so forth. Sometimes, the only person in your way is yourself! I think those were the times God sent a message through whichever vessel he sought fit. Each time this happened someone from my team reached out inquiring about the film needing direction in some sort. They weren’t aware of the state I was in, but gave me the courage to climb the ladder in preparation of diving again.
Lindsey: Watching this film, it becomes apparent that community is so innate to your narrative and your process, what does community really mean to you and what does it mean to work with your community?
Barrington: My mission is to break through, reaching those in my community and beyond. My community has given me the courage to be fearless, diminishing doubt in my artistry. I’ve been grateful to find support and reassurance within my team. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have released the album or the film.
Lindsey: What does it really mean to understand? It’s such a basic human need and necessity but at the base level of it, I think there’s always acceptance required first as its foundation.
Barrington: My community is aware of what I produce and my aesthetic, making it easy to identify the language of my works.
Lindsey: That’s powerful, does that feel more like a responsibility? The idea of being unapologetic is also something that we take from your work but it can also be a lonely, difficult journey at times, martyrdom in a sense.
Barrington: I found my breakthrough while in the studio recording freestyles. The purity in singing my truth made me realize I had a responsibility. It’s warranted because the difference between most independent and mainstream artists is creative freedom. As independent artists, we have an opportunity to present a narrative for those artists who can't. With today's various media outlets a label isn’t needed to connect. I’ll be appreciative as long as one person resonates with the work, plays it in seclusion in their bedroom, yearning for that moment to cry, bust a whine, or sing it aloud, “Boy.. I love when you put that thing on me!”
Lindsey: You've mentioned before that bE! is perhaps your "soft" artistic, alter ego and through it, you're able to share things you normally wouldn’t, especially when it comes to emotionality and relationships. There’s a lot of power of performance, it allows us to explore the dualities of our multiple selves. Is the artist always the individual? Or do they exist as a choice to be shared? Do you want to let people in?
Barrington: I’d prefer to run away from the stigma of an alter ego. I refuse to hide behind my emotions going forward facing them head on. I want to remain solid in all representations of bE! I believe we start with a clean canvas in which we have the ability to paint as vividly as we desire. I rarely feel any pressure of expectations on who society expects me to be as the artist or Barrington. Yes, Crying Entity was the conduit created off of pure impulsive feelings, but my next body of work should reel listeners in as it will be more transparent.
Lindsey: Were you always this strong, this fearless, this comfortable when it came to expression? How did you cross that bridge?
Barrington: I’ve always been fearless since growing up in the Bronx, NY and Tampa, FL. It takes confidence as a black man to wear custom wigs from Sean Bennett while strolling in runway “that you’ve acquired for your works”. The hustle alone brings comfort! This is the energy being brought to my music.
Lindsey: The word comfortable sometimes insinuates being stagnant almost to some people sometimes but to prescribe to that definition I feel like people are leaving out the fact to get to that point -- you’ve got to build it. When I think of comfort, I think of a sense of home, being at home at and with yourself. What does home mean to you?
Barrington: Home to me is when I’m at peace within myself. It’s not easy to obtain, when you're critical and hard on yourself. By understanding there's always room for growth I’m comfortable with my position in life and music.
Lindsey: The video is so powerful because it's transformed the people that you worked with too. The idea of transformation is also often woven directly into clothing as well. It doesn’t necessarily change your character but perhaps it alters the way in which you occupy space. For instance, with the NightShades guys riding on the back of the truck -- do you feel the wardrobe was used to dispel assumptions about identity or where does fashion’s power lie in pushing your narrative?
Barrington: My appreciation for skating and the community it can build, brought the idea of kicking pavement with the homies. In majority of my projects I strive to create a sense of fantasy. This scene definitely broke the concept of a street skater when I decided to push the narrative and go bizarre! We’re so judgemental of identity, I thought it was beneficial to expose a softer side of the sport.
Lindsey: We've spoken so much about vulnerability and community and it all kind of just hearkens back to what we understand true love and self-love to mean, curious as to what your definitions of these concepts are?
Barrington: True love is quoted as strong, lasting affection between two spouses or two lovers. As a single man, my true love is music. We’re way past the honeymoon phase and gearing up on our fourth year going strong. Self love in my own words is just being in love with yourself. No matter the situation, whatever experience you're in, whatever emotion edured. Love yourself enough to receive what’s warranted to you.
Lindsey: Right but also mainstream media has really defined what love should look like, let alone feel like whilst often ignoring the complexities of the emotion itself. I think who we are and the experiences, traumas, insecurities, we’ve have ultimately dictates the kind of love that we need and crave, what does that love look like for you?
Barrington: Picture a carefree yacht getaway with your #MCM, opening gifts from your 10th year anniversary registry, an irrational purchase of a potcake puppy from the Jamaican shores, topping off the night with endless bottles of champagne!