Goodbye Tomorrow is an anonymous Chicago rap group. Their debut album, Goodbye Tomorrow: Journey Through the Mind of a Non Believer, came out to quiet acclaim last month via Rostrum Records (who have broken such little-known acts as Mac Miller and Wiz Khalifa). But there are a lot of cool anonymous artists with sleek-looking and polished-sounding albums. Why should you care?
Because holy shit Goodbye Tomorrow made a cool music video for their latest single, "The Way." The song itself bubbles up throughout the video, reminding you, in case the cool video game rendering of the Chicago skyline at the beginning or the aerial shot of that weird abandoned grain solo thing you see off I-55 didn't make it clear, that they're from "the murder capital, shout out to Chief Keef" and meditating on drowning problems in liquor. But the video is far more immersive than that, offering up a grim vision of the near future in which all color has been drained from the world by an asshole-ish Iron Man lookalike and his goon squad. Our hero, the kid you see getting throttled in his ski goggles above, has to restore color to the world with his ragtag band of helpers. Et cetera. Video games can be a crutch for music videos to reference, but this is legitimately cool and incredibly well made. I love the part, too, where a Game Over screen flashes, and we get the message "lose ego to continue." That's real life, right there.
I reached out to Goodbye Tomorrow to unearth a few more thoughts about what the video means and who they are and what their lives in Chicago are like. But, naturally, they only wanted to speak cryptically, offering the following statement over email:
"Døn͢'t givë̠̠ in͓ tø dü̠̠ality⃔. ₸he wo͛®ld i$ not sø b⃕la¢k and white͙. peÅce №t ¢om͓prømis⃒e... The concept of the video is the fucking truth…like, that’s the truth, that’s how the world actually is. It’s actually evil motherfuckers that are machine ass niggas that take you and program you. That’s the real truth, every day that shit happens. They wanna tame motherfuckers and put niggas into a box because if we're pre-programmed to be a certain way then it’s easier to control what we’ll think and what we do. Until you see that, there’s no way to stop it, no outside help, it only come from you. That’s what you can take away from the video, song, album, all that. It’s just about the battle for your true self. You can’t never let somebody tell you who you are, what you are, what you can or can’t do, none of that. All the external, worldly, temporary shit is just a trick to get you off the way and shit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “
Fair enough. Watch the kickass video below:
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