Eau Claire-based rapper Sayth just dropped a video for “Pink Pistols”, the first single off his upcoming EP, Body Pillow, due out in July. Sayth (birth name Eric Wells) deliberately enunciates his way through wry self-conscious lines like “we could be better as a team / like orange creme / on the bus together staring at our own screens,” delivered a bit like a chilled out take on fellow midwesterner Slug (minus all the aggro posturing) over low drones and occasional rapid-fire drum machine hi-hat fills. The black and white video, shot in New York by Spencer Wells, shows Sayth doing New York things such as taking the subway, brooding on a rooftop, and playing a crowded living room show. It also shows him on several dates with a boy, starting and ending with a kiss.
Queer visual representation has long been relegated to noncommittal queerbaiting: longing stares, tragic drawn-out hugs, “no homo” homosocial bro bonding, or, most recently, the occasional dry state-sanctioned altar smooch. “Pink Pistols” downplays the gesture in a way that’s so neutral it’s lowkey radical, establishing it as just a thing people do. To drive the point home, Wells punctuates it with a pointed dig: “Macklemore made a million off of gay rights / thanks bro, this is actually my real life.”
