ILL DOOTS get existential in new video for “Peaking” set on stage at The Wilma

Hip-hop and jazz-rock collective ILL DOOTS released a striking new video for their 2020 single “Peaking.” Bursting with energy and personality, the video gloriously upholds ILL DOOTS’ mission: to be positive forces of love and learning in their community. 

“This is the story of a group of people finding Funk as a means to look inward and change, shake that thang and find your foundation, baby,” says ILL DOOTS about “Peaking.” “This is about the spirits that lead us and all that is holy within us.” In the story told by “Peaking,” the narrator wonders if they’ve reached their full potential, contributing to the world all that they could. Vocalist US sings, “Is this the top of my game? Is this the top of my high? Is this the top of my threshold or the top of my vibe?”

The clean, heavenly-lit setting for “Peaking” is borrowed from the set of The Wilma’s production of Kill Move Paradise, a play by James Ijames and fundraiser for Black Lives Matter Philly. In the play, four Black men wait in purgatory to face the afterlife, and ponder the murders of unarmed Black youth by police. The play and ILL DOOTS’s song share a celestial contextualization on life, and pose the greatest questions in life such as, “How do I fit in?,” and “What is all this for?”

Watch below for the full video.