Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist Bunny Michael has shared the music video for a new single, “888,” the first taste of an forthcoming album, Nature Slut: A Telenovela. “888” was co-produced with fellow Brooklyn artist Michael Beharie—its title, they tell THUMP over email, represents “the infinite potential when feminine and masculine energies are in balance.”
For the music video, Bunny called upon Alli Coates, the director behind 2013 short film American Reflexxx, which captured an eye-opening experience of what happens when a woman enters a hostile public environment. Together, they arrived at the concept of “888,” which Bunny describes as “the end of the patriarchy, which gives birth to a new beginning.”
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“Throughout history the female body has been an abused object of desire, but it is actually a secret weapon of mass destruction,” Coates tells THUMP. This notion provides the premise of the video, which shows Bunny utilizing sexuality to lure the male lead—whom Coates says represents a Trump-like character bent on oppressing women and people of color—into a trap.
Upon his capture, Bunny and a group of women celebrate what Coates labels “a bacchanal celebration of sensuality. A meditation on flesh and human desire. The celebration leads to a final cult ritual to usher in the dawn of a new era. A time of rebirth, freedom, sensitivity, and equality.”
Watch Bunny Michael’s “888” video above.
