Moses Sumney – "Monumental"

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Moses Sumney – "Monumental"

Just a few months ago, Moses Sumney released a remarkable new album, græ. The album had some stunning video components, most of them helmed by Sumney himself, and he’s extending that visual flair to a new ad campaign for the fashion designer Thom Browne. In a video for the campaign that Sumney directed, he puts himself on a pedestal and shows off his chiseled physique. In making the video, Sumney had a lot of questions on his mind, which he laid out in a statement:

What does it mean to pose statuesque on top of a marble podium, at a time when statues across the world — long-standing symbols of white supremacy — are literally being toppled? What does it mean to appropriate the Greco-Roman statue, a long-standing placeholder of white male virility and beauty, and replace it with my black body? A body that has historically been disregarded as far less beautiful and in more recent years, objectified? What does it mean to objectify myself?

To accompany the video, he recorded his own version of the “Olympic Hymn,” which was composed by Spyridon Samaras and has Greek lyrics by poet Kostis Palamas. His take on it is called “Monumental,” and Sumney sings the translated English version of the song, and gives the track his characteristic operatic splendor.

Check it out below.

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