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Friday, February 1, 2013

Hidden Meaning: The Weeknd - the Knowing (Dir.: Mikael Colombu)



On the surface, this sounds like a song about a man who cheats on the woman who cheated on him. Whether the Weeknd intended a deeper meaning for the song from its inception, you can decide. However, the video adds another dimension to the song. It is the Voice of God Almighty playing in the Mind of the Christ-figure in the video. God is the He Who Knows Everything and while these painful events play out in the lives of the characters in the music video, the viewer is to hearken to the oft-repeated reminder from the Holy Qur’an, “I Know” (or I, Allah, am the Best Knower!)

Let’s examine the video as a means of extracting much of the hidden meaning to be found in “the Knowing.”

King Haile Selassie

In the beginning sequence, Emperor Haile Selassie I is overthrown by the Dergue. The Dergue was a council that was originally set-up to look into military grievances, but gained very quickly gained power in Ethiopia. They ousted Selassie (a monarch in the line of monarchs), killed 60 high-ranking officials in his cabinet, and set-up Marxist-Leninism (a European paradigm) as the ideology of the Ethiopian State. With the ousting of King Selassie, the rule of the Solomonoid Emperors was broken.

Dick Gregory remembered watching TV and seeing King Selassie stand at the front the procession of all the European royals. King Selassie was in the same family as King David, King Solomon, and yes - Jesus. The video makes a connection between King Selassie (who cared for his country and people and was a man of peace) and the protagonist. Some of the reasons will become evident later. The primary reason is that the director wants to establish a family line that goes back to God Almighty.

I Know What You Did…

As the words to the song start to play, we find an angel staring down at a woman. The darkly angelic being puts light into the woman. “The Sons of God saw the daughters of men – that they were fair.” The Sons of God (Angels) had sex with daughters of men.

This causes the “Sons of God” to taste her – death, as their sons become part Earth-born men and part star-born. So, the protagonist is shown with his eyes clouded. Yet, he is also standing on a cloud. He is a being of Heaven, but partly a being of Earth. The earthly aspect, he is confused about. The red represents desire and it is these low desires that are causing the being confusion.

He becomes a vampire. He and his brothers are using these women for his sexual purpose like his Fathers (the Angels did). They are just meat to him. He slays them (sexually) and discards them, because this is his addition. He is one of the sons of those first Sons of God, who saw that the daughters were fair. He has inherited the ways of his Fathers. The lion represents the animal nature that is alive in the man, that because he is of God – what comes out of him is a natural things still.

Fall from Grace…

The daughters of men finally realize that they are no prizes and become disillusioned. They separate from the world (or Mars separates from Venus). Mars is anger. And, Venus is love. It’s not masculine or feminine. What God created will always be LOVE and what is man-made will always be imperfect.

So, the woman in her anger and mental anguish represents Mars here. It’s a bit of a change-up from what people would expect, but that’s how one can figure out good from evil. What God creates can create and is creative, whether male or female. It is God’s and will always be God’s. What man makes, by accident or otherwise, will always be the imperfect design of man.

The Tower represents the height of that civilization. So, the separation brought about a fall, because of this darkness that has descended upon Ethios X. The woman, still having some of the Light of the Sons of God, begins to make men of her own. “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” The men are given the Light of Religion (false light) as a yardstick, but God’s Children already have his heart. So, they don’t need religion. Hence, “Jesus said, “You are of your father the Devil. And, his works you will do.” In the video, they shut the mouth of the devil that comes to spread religion. Then, they are killed by Crusaders sent by the woman who represents Satan.

It is not until the woman attempts to destroy what GOD created that she incurs the wrath of the Eternal Fathers. This dooms her. She throws away her inheritance (LOVE), which is the only true inheritance GOD can offer. The Son reintegrates with the Father and realizes that He must let her go to break the cycle of history that has played out for 20,000 years – that this child of the Sons is not a Child of the Fathers. Thus, Satan is sent into the pit.

God Knows all. So, when the Weeknd says, “You thought you would break my heart.” It’s God saying, “You thought you would break my heart.”He’s saying, “I knew what all of you were capable of before you were made. I know why I told you not to do what I told you not to do. You’re not hurting me. You’re hurting yourselves.”

Notice also that the inheritance is passed to a donkey-like creature – that has shown itself to be upright (or advanced in its conscious enough to get the necklace). So, the woman gets passed over – having never gotten over her hurt, the emotional and mental anguish.

Notice that the words “I Know Everything” are also in an Arabic-like script. This is another indication that GOD is the Knower that the song is referring to. The video kinda’ does a 180, as normally all these figures are played by men. The Angels in Heaven are always depicted as beings of light, while the minions of hell are always depicted as dark and ugly. Here, we have a more flattering depiction of darkness. The woman becomes the darkness that attracts the beings of light.

This is a story that has been told hundreds of times over in hundreds of ways. It is the story of how life was seeded on our planet and many other places in the cosmos. This, by far, is one of the best depictions I have seen.

Extra Credit: What is meant by "Now, these tongues don't twist like they used to?"

12 comments:

  1. Great Article fantastic read. Respect James

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  2. I can't believe ur from Baltimore I don't live very far from u but damn hmu on twitter plz ur mindset and blogs amazing @theweeknddmv

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  3. Guys look at his song I can't feel my face his eyes are weird and when he is on fire he starts to do some crazy dance but the fire represents he'll

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  4. Guys look at his song I can't feel my face his eyes are weird and when he is on fire he starts to do some crazy dance but the fire represents he'll

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  5. Guys look at his song I can't feel my face his eyes are weird and when he is on fire he starts to do some crazy dance but the fire represents he'll

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    1. The fire represents the fame he got from making a deal with the devil...in other words before making the deal with the devil he couldn't get a reaction from the audience but after he did, he was on fire; figuratively and literally. Follow the Can't Feel My Face, Tell Your Friends, and The Hills theory.

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  6. Absolutely wonderful analysis. Keep it up fam.

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  7. There is a reason the gender has been twisted from what is normally portrayed. What you guys have TOTALLY overlooked is the "woman" in the video is NOT a natural woman at all but portrayed by a model who is transgender. Thus the hidden message

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  8. So what does the extra credit mean? Simply what we expect from old stories told orally down generations. But now we are starting to hear other stories and realize that what we know is all twisted????

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  9. Everyone can filter out his or her own truth from the text. God is love for many people, or a partnership is. It is rare for a commercial artist to write poetry with personal meaning or interpretation of the theme. Because a large mass of people should find a connection to the text. It is not important who or what was in his head when he wrote it. It should be a song for you and me and we can sink into it and use it with the beautiful voice and melody for our situation.

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  10. sometimes a song is story telling, sometimes it is a general topic, very often it is love what is the topic in all the ways love can be topic in the lifes of people. or pain. this what we all know and have to handle with. and music can help. it is the best when someone has written the lyric with a very large option to find yourselve in there in the situations we all know. when we have the big feelings. pain, love, feeling guilty, searching sense of life. and we all love someone. we are all connectet. you can definitly say that relationships between people are necessary to think and feel about and god is also for those who believe connected with these big feelings. and when you believe you know that god is everywhere in the people inside and everywhere. you cannot disconnected from the hurting feelings and the feelings of love between people. i am not religious and although i know this is what you always preach about god and what it is..... so why always discussions about that.... dont understand then this faith you have....and fight with and against it all the time....

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