Brian Brown Tours a Gentrifying East Side in 'Flava' [Fresh Vid]

There is a heap of important conversations about how Nashville serves its residents — what our recent boom years accomplished, and for whom. A point that has been reinforced time and again is how our Black and brown communities have historically been eroded by displacement, while they keep coming up with vital and innovative solutions to the challenges they face.

Local Black musicians across a broad spectrum, especially in hip-hop, have long been telling important stories about the impact of gentrification on their neighborhoods and families. Last week, Petty and The Watchman and tha Poet released tracks that connected those stories to discussions about institutionalized racism and police violence. Now, fellow top-shelf Nashville rapper Brian Brown adds his perspective via the music video for “Flava,” a track from his outstanding debut album Journey. You may recall that he recently dedicated a live performance of “Flava” to Ahmaud Arbery.

In the song, Brown looks from a variety of different angles at focusing on what's important in a world full of distractions. The first verse sets the tone, as he raps about a man experiencing homelessness who everyone seems to be ignoring, and then expands that observation out to the indifference people seem to have about gentrification: “Condos just keep coming up / And generations blowing down / But look around / Your hood might be next / No reason to be perplexed / I wish that came with a punch line.”

In the video, director Seck's camera follows Brown around the East Nashville neighborhoods where he grew up. He raps in front of single-family houses as well as condo towers and tall-and-skinnies under construction. Once the track is finished, the camera keeps rolling as Brown looks around a cul-de-sac where he lived as a youngster, explaining how his neighbors, most of whom seem to be gone now, held the community together. Check out the video above, and find Journey on your favorite streaming services or buy it through Bandcamp. Also, keep up with Brown via Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.