Jeymes Samuel, known as The Bullitts when he puts his focus on music, is a true creative. Mixing cinema with music is not necessarily anything new, but Samuel incorporates it into his music more than most.

A few months back, Samuel released a short Western film, starring Michael K. Williams, Rosario Dawson, Isaiah Washington and Erykah Badu as the “music video” for the title track of his album. It’s not the first time he has done this either, as the Bullitts YouTube account is full of abstract short films, including this old collaboration with Jay Elect. If that wasn’t impressive enough, he also has the elusive Jay Electronica on three new tracks here. You can stream the full project below and pre-order it on iTunes now before it drops on July 9.

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“They Die By Dawn” is the second collaboration between The Bullitts, Jay Electronica, and Lucy Liu, though this time around they abandoned 80’s style stomp-clap and harmonies for Spaghetti-Western grit as well as a sermon, and eight bars and change from the former Mos Def. The Brooklyn MC does his thing, but the reclusive Jay Elect steals the show with spine-tingling righteousness. Lucy Liu…is also there, repeating the song’s title, attempting a hook. “They Die By Dawn” is set to appear on the soundtrack of Jeymes Samuel a.k.a. The Bullitts’ film of the same name, which stars The Wire‘s Michael Kenneth Williams, Breaking Bad‘s Giancarlo Esposito, and, most notably Jay‘s ex and fellow legendary recluse, Erykah Badu.  Peep the trailer on YouTube.

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So last week we looked at the visual for Jay Electronica‘s first collaboration with the U.K’s The Bullitts, a song called “Run and Hide” that was sort of perplexing. So how do these guys top “Run and Hide” for weirdness? They bring in Lucy Liu to spit a little spoken word narration on their new track, “Close Your Eyes.”

Yeah, that Lucy Liu. She’s got a cool voice, I guess, and there’s nothing wrong with having to look at Lucy Liu, but where did that come from? When it’s all said and done and the beat drops, though, it’s actually a pretty great instrumental. If you don’t have much patience, Jay Elect finally comes on the mic at the 2:34 minute in the video, and kills it as usual.

The song is actually really growing on me, but I can’t help but wish Jay would just bounce the Bullitts’ singer and set up a Black Thought and The Roots type arrangement. Then, I guess we could keep Lucy Liu around.

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The lengths I will go to hear some new Jay Electronica. Yesterday our hero, working with Jeymes Samuel‘s new group The Bullitts, released a nine and a half minute long short (short?) film to introduce their song “Run and Hide” (or more properly, “Fuir et Se Cacher”). This is, I suppose, the sort of integration of art and hip-hop that we seek out at RESPECT., but I’m feeling more than a little flabbergasted.

Samuel, in addition to working on the music, provided the direction for the video. We see actress Elisa Lasowski walking around Paris, looking melancholy. At minute five, we finally get our first earful of Jay Elect, and it lasts 35 seconds. Sigh.

I cannot stress enough, we like ambitious, high-concept music videos. But it’s about the music first, the service of an abstract concept second. Considering Samuel is still introducing the Bullitts to the world, he shouldn’t be making people work so hard to get a listen. There’s simply too much empty space in this video, too much of a gap between the film and the music itself. Given that the music these guys are making is new, exciting, and pretty much speaks for itself, cloaking it in the strangeness of the short film seems like a strange decision.

And yes, there’s not enough Jay Electronica. But that’s the case with the entire world, one could argue.

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