- Music has taken me a lot of places
and what I want to leave in the world is inspiration
that things may take longer
but that doesn't mean you're not on the right path.
But also, I wanna leave some sort of light out here.
Music is education as well.
You know, you're singing these songs,
you're singing these lyrics and I wanna make sure
that I'm always saying something of substance.
(upbeat music)
What's up guys? It's Coco Jones.
Thank you for joining me as we go through
my hitlist music videos.
(crowd cheering)
- [Mother] Normani, stop making all that noise.
- 10605, it is where you're at, you already know.
- I feel like this was an iconic moment for Black girls
and we need more of them.
What I love about Normani is that, she is a version of me.
You know, she can really eat on stage.
She's a real really girl.
She's cute, she's fun
and I gravitate towards those type of girls.
Those are the type of girls I wanna kick it with.
So when I watched her music video,
what I loved about it was that it was a story,
like she went back to when she was a young girl watching TV
and that related to me so much
because representation meant so much to me
when I was growing up.
When I saw myself on the TV screen,
it made me feel like I could do anything.
And watching Normani "Motivation" motivates me.
I can do anything.
Music videos to me, they represent an opportunity
to tell a story from a different point of view.
Like for example, when I'm hearing a song,
I can take my own experiences and put them to the lyrics
and that makes me feel,
but the music video is a different perspective
on that same song.
It gives you a chance to like, tell your audience
what you were really thinking when you wrote it
because you can tell a visual story
and have your song playing in the background.
The song "Motivation" to me,
it's really about the intention I feel like with this song.
I love that it's positive and bright
in a world where there's just a lot of chaos.
It was really refreshing for me to hear Normani take risks
and not go with the typical type of style.
She wanted to switch it up
and for me, I always come in being courageous
and I always come in switching it up.
Normani ain't no plate.
One thing about this girl,
she can give you a five, six, seven and eight.
There's so much to unpack.
I mean, the basketball,
when she made the basketball hit her butt,
like, what are we talking about here?
Not you including the basketball.
When she was doing the split in the rain with the jeans
and it's just like, what I love about everything
that Normani put into "Motivation,"
it shows you how talented the girls are.
And when we get that opportunity, we shine.
All I got was Black girl magic from "Motivation."
I'm really honored to be in the same category as her,
as Chloe, as H.E.R. the artist, as Summer, as SZA
because I feel like we get to represent
what being a Black beautiful dark-skinned woman is.
We get to be like ourselves and that's acknowledged.
Like, thank God for our ancestors
because they walked so that we could run.
Okay, so my next video on my top hitlist
favorite music videos is Doja Cat, "Kiss Me More."
(gentle music)
- [Astronomer] Your mission, to observe
and study planet Earth.
Do not...
(static crackling)
- Great.
(upbeat music)
- I love this song because I feel like it's super girly.
The song makes me feel like bubblegum and pink
and then the music video does as well.
I love Doja and SZA and their interactions.
The visuals were really cool.
Like, the things that we can do in 2022,
it's like so crazy, like the effects
and one thing about Doja,
she's gonna have some really cool effects
in her music video.
Doja's vibe and the futuristic space,
type of out of this world girl vibe that she gives,
I think it's always been her.
You can go back to her music before she was really popping
and there's always this sense of like,
just out of this world, from another galaxy
and I love that about her.
I want to continue to show girls that you can be anything.
You can feel like you're an alien,
you can feel like you're from another planet
and somebody's gonna resonate with that
and I think Doja has made me fall in love with her
for a different way.
Like, just her being creative and an amazing performer
and really knowing how she wants her project to look.
I feel like nobody's telling Doja who to be,
she's telling them who she is.
I love that Doja and SZA get to like play off of each other
and be very sensual and to give that feminine charm
that I think is so refreshing and fun.
And really, to me, I just can see that
like they had a great time.
Like, I can feel that they actually enjoy being there
and sometimes when you watch a music video
and the chemistry isn't there, it just doesn't connect.
But I can tell, like, what I love about them is that
they were just being two girls
and they're both like quirky in their own ways,
so I feel like they could connect on that
but it reminds me of when I'm with my girls
and we having a sleepover, having fun,
we're singing to music, we're singing to 90s,
Brandy, "The Boy Is Mine" or whatever we're doing,
but the point is like, it's fun and it's girly
and it's powerful and it's pretty.
I think overall, it's like being sure of yourself
and knowing that even if what you like and who you are
isn't like, the most popular or easy to explain,
somebody's gonna get your vision
and you'll find the right audience that gravitates to you
because you're authentic to you.
My next music video choice is Victoria Monet, "Moment."
(gentle R&B music)
The reason I love this music video is, it's very artsy.
There are some crazy transitions
and I've actually shown this music video
to a couple different directors
and I'm like, how do we do that?
'Cause I had never seen something like that before.
There's definitely like, layers to the video
and I love the theme of Black love
and Victoria Monet, I definitely think she deserves
her flowers way, way, way, way, way, way, way back then
'cause she'd been that girl.
But I'm really happy to root for her and to see her winning
and to see her, I feel like
she really knows who she is at this point
and you can tell that from all of her projects,
all of her concepts, everything she does.
The first time I saw this music video
was when I was looking for inspiration
and looking to see like, what's out there
and who's been doing what, and I had heard the song,
I heard her project way before then, but I was like,
oh, let me see what this music video is about.
And I just was immediately, immediately proud, proud of her.
I mean, you can tell that she has her input
on everything down to like what she wears
or down to the colors, the way it was edited.
Just felt like, wow, that's really her.
I can really see Victoria through this video.
Her representation of Black love
and her representation of masculinity
and powerful Black people was so refreshing.
What we leave in this Earth will determine
the next generation.
So I think it was very intentional of her
to show that Black love
and to show Black beauty in all these different ways.
And I think that it'll continue to inspire
more Black positivity.
Victoria Monet and her "Moment" music video
inspired me to be more hands-on,
to really write down a treatment and to pick visuals
and to make sure that what I'm presenting to the world,
people can say what I said when I watched her video.
Oh, that's definitely being Victoria.
I want people to watch my music videos and be like,
oh, that's definitely Coco.
Watching Victoria be in control of how she was represented,
just once again, makes me grateful for how far we have come
and how far Black women have come
in the ways that we are represented.
That's the goal with music videos.
That's the goal with music, just to continue to inspire.
Thank you for joining me for my You Can Have It All Hitlist.
(upbeat music)