diamonds are forever

I recently saw Kanye West's Diamond's video (directed by the well-reknown Hype Williams) and to my surprise it wasn't an egregious display of bling that tends to be endemic to hip hop nor was it a visual worshipfest of Jay-Z/Roc-A-Fella records. Kanye's new project may be a step toward hip hop's long-overdue critique of conspicuous materialism.

The Diamonds from Sierra Leone remix invites viewers to gaze upon the faces of African children who work the diamond mines. Children often caught in the crossfire of rebel warfare. Children who lose their limbs so that "ours" can shine.

In one memorable scene in the video, a visibly wealthy white man proposes on one knee to his beloved. After he places the big rock on her ring finger, simulated blood runs down her hands while an African child looks on from the background. The hook of Shirley Bassey singing "Diamonds are Forever" takes on a haunting tone in this context.

While the Diamond's video exposes the connection between the human rights abuses of African children and the capitalistic underpinnings of western romance (or perhaps that's just how I read the video), it would have been interesting to incorporate hip hop's bling obsession into the mix. Since U.S. black folks have a connection with our African brothers and sisters via a shared history of trauma, the transatlantic implications of bling wearing rappers interspersed with scenes of African children working the diamond mines might have launched an even more radical critique. Maybe Kanye's saving that storyline for the next Diamond's video.