Pitchfork Forkcast: Video: Rick Ross [ft. T-Pain]: "Boss"

Video: Rick Ross [ft. T-Pain]: "Boss"

Here's where the highly-stylized rap video starts to resemble the kind of homemade skit you and your teenage friends post on YouTube: Rick Ross and T-Pain's "Boss", a playful and aimless concoction, too goofy to be shrugged off as perfunctory. For most of the flick, the ornery Miami magnate channels Isaac Hayes, sporting nothing but a robust beard and a big Buddha belly. He and his largely decorative Yoko-to-his-John waste the photo shoot away, dawdling in bed, cussing out drug dealers, waiting for the wardrobe department to bring him a shirt. Then there's T-Pain, who clearly had a chance to rummage through a trunk full of costume apparel, the end result being: Leprechaun. His performance is all fun/games. He discos before a radiant window the size of your average foreclosed home, repeating hyperactive hand motions and lyrical gestures that signify almost nothing. During the hook, he transforms the word "boss" into a percussive instrument, like a tambourine: "Boss... boss, boss... boss..." and the good-for-a-chuckle clip turns out to be an understated success.