It has been quite a few years now since I first heard Jean Grae via her connection to Talib Kweli; she is an artist that has grown on me over the years as it has become more and more apparent that she is creative to a frustrating degree. I was updating myself from her Bandcamp library recently (where a lot of great independently- released music is available very low price direct from her) and all the good music from 2014 and into this year motivated me to finally get around to watching this webseries.
The webseries is another example of what I assume is her creative energy to always try new things, but her limited resources (and perhaps focus?) to not drift off onto other things that interest her; in particular this is seen in the fact that the webseries only ran to 4 episodes, and that the fourth episode only had a part 1, with the 2nd part still not done almost a year later. However the show also captures the creativeness in the way that there is a great deal to enjoy about it, and a lot to miss as it dipped in quality here and there, and also clearly ran out of money and motivation to make it happen. The first episode is by far the best of the bunch, but the second one shows oddities and things of interest, the animation one is a bit one note but shows determination and self- awareness, while the fourth episode is also self-referential and manages to be both funny and interesting.
Grae is very much the driving force behind the whole show, as indicated by the long list of credits assigned to her. She is the reason so much of it works, and so much of it is funny as I find her performances generally funny in not only her voice-work but also in her facial expressions and reactions. She is at her best in the first episode, but in all of them her presence makes her own material better – which is also what I find with her music, it is no just her product but herself that makes it more than it might have been in others hands. Perhaps this is why she is out on her own now – at least this way she can do what she wants when she wants.
The show is very rough around the edges, and for sure not to everyone's humor, but for me Grae made it work well, and it is a shame that she seems to have forgotten about this now.
