The Knowles–Carter clan know how to turn a music video release into an event, and Jay-Z has well and truly outdone himself with ‘Moonlight‘, the latest clip from his 4:44 album, which recreates the beloved sitcom Friends with an all-black cast.
The video, directed by Master Of None‘s Alan Yang, arrived earlier today as a Tidal exclusive – the streaming service shared a short snippet of it below, although non-subscribers will apparently have to wait until some time next week to see the whole thing.
Watch: @S_C_ x Moonlight x @TIDALHiFi https://t.co/We5OlPBrLl pic.twitter.com/8tvYNDNdfP
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) August 4, 2017
The clip stars Jerrod Carmichael (The Carmichael Show) as Ross, Issa Rae (Insecure) as Rachel, Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip) as Phoebe, LaKeith Stanfield (Atlanta) as Chandler, Lil Rey Howery (Get Out) as Joey and Tessa Thompson (Creed) as Monica.
It starts out with the six recreating scenes from classic Friends episodes like ‘The One Where No-One’s Ready‘, but things take a turn when Hannibal Buress wonders on to set, playing himself, and starts uncomfortably breaking the fourth wall.
Per Vox, this is when star Jerrod Carmichael begins questioning the whole process:
So as everyone else gets ready to keep rolling, the video breaks the multi-cam format to focus on Carmichael, looking around the set and hating everything about it. And it’s at thispoint, as Carmichael walks off the Friends set, that Jay-Z’s ‘Moonlight’ finally starts playing, his voice breathing that they’re “stuck in La La Land; even when we win, we gon’ lose.”
We’ll surely be looking out for the video next week when it premieres outside of Tidal.
