Chicago R&B singer Jamila Woods opens her "BALDWIN" visual with a quote from the legendary writer, James Baldwin. It reads, "Your crown has been bought and paid for. All you have to do is put it on your head." Last month Woods delivered her LEGACY!LEGACY! project, and to support the record she's back with a Vincent Martell-directed music video.
Said to be inspired by Baldwin's "Letter to My Nephew," the visual is taps into a Harry Potter theme as it takes a South Side Chicago school and recreates it into a school of magic. “To outsiders, the school appears to be abandoned—one of the 50 public schools closed under Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s watch in 2013,” Woods said of her video in a statement. “However, for Black people in the neighborhood this space is a gem, an oasis of Black learning and radical education for young people. We shot part of the film documentary-style, to include young people’s perspectives on what they would want their dream school to be like.”