pink siifu’s “pull up” glimpses love in everyday black life

Over the past two years, rapper/singer/producer Pink Siifu has carved out a niche for himself as one of the most prolific and consistently dope artists in the indie rap underground. Through the release of solo albums like 2018’s stellar Ensley, collaboratons with producer Ahwlee (as B. Cool-Aid) and fellow subterranean rapper Akai Solo (for Black Sand), and guest appearances on projects by MNDSGN and Anna Wise, he’s introduced listeners to a warm, poetic and unmistakably Black music,  which will undoubtedly put him on many rap radars in 2020.

To end the year on a high note, Pink Siifu has released the Ameer Kazmi-directed video for “Pull Up,” from his 2018 EP I’m still. on its one-year anniversary. The video is a vignette about tenderness and care in the hood — things seldom expressed about the working-class Black community in the media we consume. We see street drama and dysfunction play out often on all our screens, but rarely do we see a simple act of care, like a young Black man offering to buy ingredients with an EBT card to cook his lady friends breakfast, as we see in the evocative “Pull Up” visuals. In the video, we get other glimpses of Black love’s expression in quotidian tasks: a father braids his son’s hair while his mom colors with him; Siifu and his friend Ted Kamal reminisce about riding in his father’s Escalade; and a gold-tooth smiling Siifu rides shotgun in a lady friend’s truck through the streets of Bed-Stuy. In the midst of the holiday season, as the weather gets colder for us in the northern hemisphere, the “Pull Up” video is a reminder that the warmest warmth comes from our loved ones.