I watched Neal Brennan’s 3 Mics standup special on Netflix last night. (Brennan is the guy who helped create and write Chappelle’s Show.) Often you hear some of the best comics have some of the darkest and depressing back stories, but that’s what makes them great: they channel that hurt into something the complete opposite — funny.
But Brennan handled his previous 40 years of depression and addiction differently on stage. Sure, he did his comedy, set with one-liners and routine standup about dating and sex. But he did something I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a comedy standup special. For one-third of the show, Brennan dropped the jokes (for the most part) and told his life story, one that was full of abuse, depression, addiction and alcoholic father and search for closure. It’s hard for a lot of people to share stories like Brennan did, let alone record it and put it on Netflix for millions to see. But it also demonstrated how he used comedy and an openness on stage to force his hiding in the fear of living in the shadows, which he’d admittedly hit in for too long.
Everyone handles the darkness inside them and the momentary happiness the light shines through in different ways. Brennan, as I learned, learned the best way for him to handle it was thought TMS therapy and speaking about it openly. Other people, as we’ve found through hundreds of years of art, put it into song and a visual capacity.
Brooklyn native SupaWave Osbourne has a darkness all around him, and there’s a certain fear that comes along with that. But Osbourne, as he depicts in the video for his song “Blvcked Out,” is ready to head into “the unknown with a fearless outlook” — and that’s the only way he knows how.
He said in a press email the song is about “knowing that you are an immortal spirit after everything is stripped away. … To not only not fear the other side but to embrace it, because in being BLVCKED OWT you can find light.”
The video, which counts as Osbourne’s DopeHouse debut, sees him bluntly tackling that darkness with confidence. It’s grainy and shot in black-and-white. Each time the darkness overcomes him, though, he gets back up and with the same aura.
“Blvcked Owt” will land on Osbourne’s upcoming project, The Mandela Effect. Watch the video, directed by Figure Eight Films, below.
