Music News is proud to host the exclusive world premiere of "I Be A Fool" by Storyboard P.
It's not every day that an artist is hailed as the Basquiat of anything, let alone the Basquiat of street dance, but that's exactly how The New York Times described the potentially indescribable Storyboard P. For decades, he has occupied a singular place in contemporary culture, rising from the ashes of a tumultuous Brooklyn upbringing to irrevocably revolutionize hip-hop tradition. Storyboard built his reputation through a movement language he calls "mutation," a style that blends street dance, mime, animation, illusion, and pure improvisation, inspired by the unpredictable, uncontainable energy of stop-motion animation.
His work has appeared everywhere from underground viral clips to collaborations with Erykah Badu, who took him under her wing when he fell severely ill during the pandemic, in part sparking this new chapter, as well as Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, Usher, and most recently Drake's "High Fives" and "Little Birdie" music videos, while earning recognition from institutions ranging from MTV to Harvard. Yet despite becoming one of the most influential and widely imitated movement artists of his generation, Storyboard P has always considered himself more than a dancer. Impossible to contain within any one discipline, he is embarking on a new mission to be known for his vast creative spirit, encompassing but never limited to writing, music, and design. With the first installment of a massive 4-disc studio album now out in the world, "I Be A Fool" sets the stage and reintroduces the Storyboard P that has been there all along.
Soulful, honeyed, quietly intoxicating, "I Be A Fool" drifts like wisps of smoke over a late-night scene, threaded through a timeless, shimmering groove that could only be penned by a true pioneer. Deep in the most prolific chapter of his career, the track came together at lightning speed, with Storyboard P writing and laying everything down in just about a half hour, a good sign that the studio may well be his forever home.
His evocative lyrics move through impressionistic, hazy vignettes, weaving the cosmic and the intimate in the same breath. Rather than rushing toward anything physical, two mysterious confidants are simply trying to get loose, reaching for something beyond. The narrator wants to talk, listen, and get inside someone's mind and heart with no walls between them. "We don't have to get undressed," he offers, as nonchalantly as ever, "We can talk about our youth." It opens the door to the kind of vulnerability most songs don't slow down long enough to reach. For an artist whose work has always lived at the intersection of the tangible and the otherworldly, "I Be A Fool" shows that this formidable, ever-emerging creative force has found his voice at last.
Storyboard P’s debut music video even carries its own tale of renewal. Shot in a Newark warehouse in 2010, the footage originally accompanied a completely different song, becoming one of Storyboard P's earliest breakthrough visual pieces and attracting millions of views long before the mainstream music world caught up to his artistry. Re-edited to match the rawness of "I Be A Fool," Storyboard P makes this unassuming space entirely his own. A syringe poking out from his shoe, he glides silently, silkily, almost like an apparition, a phantom of Michael Jackson and Prince melded into one. It's hard to tell when his feet are on the ground or hovering just above it. Every movement feels superhuman and nonhuman, confined and freeform all at once. There is no other word for it besides spellbinding. The energy culminates in a final, lingering shot, his hand reaching for the stars, pulsing, as if to pluck them from the sky and pull them down into his orbit, right where they belong.
