Men on the Moon | still from video
Men On The Moon meditates on survival and gritty self-determination in “No Longer”
“The blues is simply a recalling of experience, a lot of it negative but some of it positive, and to try to transmit that you know to actually tell people what it is. So, actually, the blues is a form of storytelling. It’s a kind of narrative song, expressing the past and even what you hope to be the future or you hope not to be the future, one of those two things.” – Amiri Baraka
“This is a letter filled with tears, to all my human peers.” -Kaang
“No Longer”, the latest single from Men on the Moon’s groovy, soulful The Intro EP opens with a dream-life vibraphone loop. Lead MC Kaang (of the duo No Headliner & the Infinite Hi-Fi collective) enters with a heavy, swaying vocal, setting a weary, dramatic atmosphere. “Sacrifice…some say it’s the only way,” Kaang croons before Producer Cool Hand Duke’s heavy, swinging drums jump in, undergirding the song’s first verse while bright shards of trumpet jutting in and out of the mix. Kaang floats in and around the music, his slick wordplay revealing a deeper sense of power and insight. The song’s tense mix of effortless cool and steely determination is embodied in the line “oxygen is precious when yo’ lungs decompressin’.”
The video for “No Longer,” shot by PhotoGunTK, is staged in a cluttered auto garage and enlivened by cinematic krumping from dancers Luffy and Sexy Flex. “No Longer” sets up a visual feel that matches the song’s message of survival and gritty self-determination. “I realized I was literally at a place where I was tired of hearing what others felt another person needs to succeed,” Kaang said about the inspiration behind the song. Laying bare a rich spectrum of human emotion and experience, “No Longer” digs deep into pain, poverty, death and a hustler’s ambition, leaving us with a powerful bit of Hip Hop wrapped up in an elegant working class blues.