Pretty Ricky Want To Steal Your Honey Pot; Saudi Arabia Averts Its Eyes
In an eye-gouging monochromatic color scheme straight out of a 1998 Hype Williams clip, everything about the video for Pretty Ricky’s third single “Love Like Honey,” from the shiny overalls to the laser zap beat, could have been released to BET a decade ago without anyone blinking, while the boys continue to impress the poet in me with their mackadocious middle school come-ons: “Lick your nose/ Your neck/ Down to your bellybutton.” Who could resist? (Also are they saying “you gotta make the sex crunk”? I pray they are.) Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s first-ever music video is a little more, how do you say, restrained than Pretty Ricky’s gold experience. A religious ode to staying on the straight and narrow, “Malak Ghair Allah” nonetheless features the protagonist racing motorcycles like it was a Ruff Ryders video and hitting up fly Muslim honeys for their digits:
I guess this sort of “show the sinfulness to the audience so they’ll know what to avoid” is in the grand tradition of Christian comic books depicting gory zombies and full-color beheadings to hook their teeange readership. Despite being down with the anti-smoking message, I’m not so sure about the western commercial prospects for such a square video, especially in a country where kids film themselves humping the floor to, uh, Pretty Ricky songs. On the other hand, it might be just what our hypersexualized society requires to turn itself around. Maybe Pretty Ricky needs a little Allah in their life to stifle those urges.
Pretty Ricky – “Love Like Honey” [YouTube via Blender] Saudi Music Video Strikes Devout Note [The Telegraph]
