Tisha Campbell-Martin | “Steel Here”

Tisha Campbell-Martin – “Steel Here”
song & video musings by A. Scott Galloway

Among the most powerful songs written are those that lay bare truths as learned from the artist and relayed so that they may be recognized and/or learned from by others. The ultimate purpose of a music video, beyond advertising and entertainment, is to further illuminate and/or artistically illustrate the meaning of a song. In the case of singer/actress/dancer Tisha Campbell-Martin’s “Steel Here,” the video colorfully peels back the layers of the lyrics to make the song more clearly understood. It helps tremendously that Ms. Campbell-Martin (best known for Broadway’s “Little Shop of Horrors,” Spike Lee’s joint “School Daze,” and TV’s “Martin” and “My Wife & Kids”) recently confessed on a morning talk show that she had been raped at age 3, making the decades secreted admission NOT to promote a new single but to help a young woman that had been through similar trauma and was having difficulty getting past the pain. Coincidentally or not, it tied in perfectly with the familiar “black butterfly” boxing her demons to ascend into a purity of Utopian white metaphors of her new single’s lyric and, now, video.

“Steel Here” is about metamorphosis through overcoming tremendous pain, something most people can relate to in a myriad of life circumstances. The song hinges on a key couplet from the first verse that reads:

“I’m owning my existence / It’s a system of survival / `Cuz I’m my only rival.”

As produced by B Slade (former contemporary gospel star Tonex), the music – with its stops, thrusting restarts and sustained chords awash in triumph – feels like a battle hard-fought but won. The video directed by Viktorija Pashuta – plays all of this out masterfully in costumes, sets, color coding and choreography. Most revealing are words from an apology letter sent to Tisha from her jailed rapist that she wears as literal scarlet letters across her chest that become keys to her liberation from the chains of shame and suppression. Like so many songs in this era of Pop music, this video is a visual remix unto itself that not only clarifies the song; it transcends it to be its most powerful presentation.

(Note: A forthcoming CD via Cyborg Music Group will be Campbell-Martin’s long-awaited sophomore effort following 1992’s Tisha on Capitol Records.)

A. Scott Galloway
Music Editor
The Urban Music Scene
September 23, 2015