Oh, how wonderful it is to meet such a natural little girl! She knows what she wants and she asks for it! Not like those over-civilized little pests who have to go through analysis before they can even choose an ice cream soda. — Monica Breedlove in The Bad Seed
Words by Jason Lee; Cover photo by Michelle LoBianco
The video for RH0DA’s “Loved” (dir: Séyla Hossaini) opens over a soaring shot of a decaying, abandoned Gilded Age manor house known as Dunnington Mansion, located about an hour outside Richmond, Virginia on land once owned by a baron who bought the property from King George II and later by a captain in the Confederate Army, a tobacco magnate, and a cattle farmer with one of the mansion’s namesake residents being India Knight Dunnington…
…whose name sounds straight of a bodice-ripping romantic novel even if the reality was different living in the house for 99 years until her passing at age 103 in 1960 with the last 38 of those spent widowed in the hilltop home tending to her gardens in the bright, airy atrium she had added onto the property with the structure itself infused w/a century’s worth of cloistered feminine energy…
…which isn’t to say India Knight Dunnington’s spirit inhabits Dunnington Mansion today but clearly it does and she’s made a few friends in the afterlife from the sound of things with their echoing ghostly voices singing a plainchant-like melody in the song’s opening but just as quickly dissolving back into the ether broken up by thudding electronic drums and throbbing synth sketching out broken chords in a minor key in a manner that’s giving off serious Björk “Army of Me” energy with our featured performer flanked by two sets of garland-sporting handmaidens in elegant peasant wear…
…with RH0DA in a snug white bodice adorned with pearls and generous décolletage plus a puffy crinoline petticoat (Editor’s note: hopefully it sounds like our writer knows what they’re talking about since fashion is where the money’s at these days and we ain’t above a little brand sponsorship] and with all the white/off-white and muted earth tones setting RH0DA’s flowing auburn-if-not-outright-flame-red locks in stark relief as the handmaidens hover made-up in rouge and white powder with RH0DA’s face stained by the doe-eyed eyeliner streaked down her cheeks as if just returned from a crying jag but now with a stern expression addressing the viewer in a low-toned tone of voice:
Baby you know I’ll take care of you
I trust you love, we’ll do what you wanna do
Whatever your desire I’ll be yours for good
…seductive lines set to antithetically icy, portentous musical tones as the setting flips between RH0DA and her handmaidens enjoying the out-of-doors but with the creeping vine-encased mansion always looming behind like a memory that won’t fade; and shots from inside the mansion’s once grandiose but now ruined interiors with its peeling wallpaper and paint, crumbling fixtures and furniture and water-stained ceilings signifying a slow, entropic return to a state of nature…
…so yeah it’s a fixer-upper for sure as the handmaidens go all Greek chorus-like in the pre-chorus singing in unison “money money / ain’t a problem / honey honey / ‘less you rob ‘em” in a manner that’s giving off serious M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls” energy and indeed repairing a neglected Victorian-era mansion ain’t cheap at which point a waistcoated honey enters the picture giving off strong Keanu Reeves in Dangerous Liasons energy known only as “The Prince” in the video’s credits (played by Tyler Cook)…
…leading into the chorus as RH0DA shoves and grapples with the ignoble noble observing how she’s been “giving you everything because you know / I loved you” while he’s been “taking everything / because you swore / you loved me” (note the use of past tense) which is basically the Second Law of Carnal Thermodynamics applied to a decaying relationship as romantic energy fans out and becomes less concentrated flowing inexorably from hot to cold (literally “giving off energy”) resulting in a situationship at best…
…but ya wouldn’t know any of this from the music itself as the refrain builds up energy rather than breaking it down with warm, gleaming synths and a big earworm hook as the handmaidens go into full-on dancing around the maypole mode that gives off strong Wicker Man energy as RH0DA brandishes a hot pink fan like a weapon sheathed in its scabbard as 808 hand claps and a skittering trap beat generate additional heat which inspires a bit of energy-valve releasing if anachronistic for its Victorian setting booty shaking…
photos by Heather Beach
…with one of the most notable things in our book being how the song and video consistently evoke inconsistency and uncertainty up to this point, playing with notions of duality like how romantically inclined amorous lyrics get set to foreboding beats and dark chords in the verses with the chorus’ bright ‘n’ shiny textures and hooky melodies supporting lyrics about betrayal and disappointment all of which set music video-wise in a formerly opulent, “civilized” setting now broken down and decrepit with a raw, primordial vibe in its current state…
…all of which lending a strong Southern Gothic-tinged energy to the proceedings as in writers like Faulkner being into drawing a contrast between the South’s idyllic surfaces and Southern politesse versus its (not always so) hidden horrors and unseeingly underbelly and wouldn’t you know she describes the previous single which launched her under the RH0DA moniker as a horror-pop style cover of Britney Spears’s “Crazy” with the Louisiana gal’s early sunshine pop turned inside-out into an grinding slow-motion shudder that’d be perfect on the soundtrack to the remake or the reboot or whatever of I Know What You Did Last Summer due this summer with Jennifer Love Hewitt knowing what you did 27 freakin’ summers ago but we digress…
…with the spell finally broken at the end of the second chorus when it suddenly drops off to total eerie silence besides the mournful foghorn groaning its lonely call into the distance as the video shifts just as abruptly to a night time scene backlit by a bright full moon and now RH0DA’s wielding a weapon for reals dressed in a Little Miss Red Riding Hood getup except for its green which could signify jealousy, hope and/or materialism with all seemingly in play as the “money money” pre-chorus loops and the music steadily builds from a low hum to a frenzy as RH0DA turns the tables and stalks her prey both physically and lyrically (the Prince had better pray!) as someone flips on a flickering strobe light offscreen…
…and let’s just say somebody or bodies got stabby stabbed in the end (no spoilers!) and when we circle back to the chorus one last time it’s overlaid with the haunted plainchant from the intro but blown up to cinemascope proportions plus some jubilant gospel-like hosannas and with RH0DA smiling and generally having a grand ol’ time skipping hand-in-hand with her band of handmaidens which seems like a pretty happy ending for a song about entropy so we reached out to RH0DA after her music video premiere party at Bushwick’s All-Night Skate (see pics below) cuz we got questions…
…with RH0DA a/k/a Briana Layon generously meeting up and sharing the skeleton key to unlocking the song and video over a beer at a local coffee shop (more duality!) with Briana having appeared in the Deli repeatedly over the years, most recently in write-ups on The Nuclears (a band that goes way back with the Deli) and It’s Britney, Bitch which is not your father’s or even your older brother’s local-all-stars Britney Spears tribute band so it was about time we had a sit-down…
…with Briana taking a deep dive into her own personal back history in creating RH0DA’s backstory as we came to learn, one element being her theater kid history as a self-starting student of the theatrical arts from a very young age whilst growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she appeared in multiple productions and was once courted for the Broadway cast of Annie Warbucks—a ’90s sequel to the original Annie (1977) that was a big hit off-Broadway but failed to secure needed funding for a planned move to Broadway but which did result in B. making her first trip to NYC (before the Broadway deal fell through that is) with her enduring memory of the trip being seeing Charles Barkley randomly walking down the street…
…but anyway it wasn’t Little Orphan Annie who had a life-altering impact on the junior thespian but instead another iconic, fictional character with that being Rhoda “Bad Seed” Penmark from the 1956 movie The Bad Seed which she came to know thanks to cable TV and home video with young Briana becoming pretty much infatuated with the sweet little blond girl in plaited pigtails for a time…
…whose mix of brattiness and take-no-guff attitude in the film has all the makings of a proto-riot grrrl, third-wave or is that fourth-wave feminist right down to her fondness for super-girly baby doll dresses looking like a life-sized Victorian porcelain doll but one possessed by the Bride of Chucky with a rampaging gimme gimme gimme punk attitude not at all afraid to perpetuate stereotypes about women & girls being “hysterical” or “contradictory,” to the contrary savoring it, while basically setting the template for every evil kid movie ever to follow so say you’re welcome, Damien…
…with O.G. Rhoda very memorably portrayed by Patty McCormack both on Broadway and in the subsequent film version as a “shrill, unflinching, murderous succubus of a little girl“ but hey we all have our quirks while notably raging against a variety of familiar masculinist tropes and types portrayed in The Bad Seed ranging from arrogant boys assured practically from birth of their entitlement and superiority to the aging, out-of-touch patriarchy grasping on to their hold on power despite the future being undeniably female…
…with Rhoda being prone to giggling and curtseying and saying things like “Oh, you’re the nicest mother! The prettiest mother!” while dressed like a Victorian-era American Girl Doll (petticoat purchased separately) on one hand equally prone to throwing vicious, foot-stomping, face-scowling hissy fits fueled by unmitigated homicidal rage on the other not to mention also being prone (SPOILER ALERT!) to drowning a classmate to death for winning the school’s penmanship contest (how very Fifties!) and not surrendering the gold medal when bullied for it…
…not to mention prone to locking the family’s mentally challenged handyman in the basement after setting his mattress on fire then gleefully ignoring the man’s anguished screams while playing the most annoying melody ever written over and over on the piano just upstairs and look we’re not advocating the murder of innocent, disabled men or boys just cuz they got good handwriting but at last here was a movie with zero qualm about depicted children as the evil little twerps they naturally are before society figuratively (!) beats it out of them as was once the common thinking…
…and hey at least Rhoda helped make such evil qualities more equitable not to mention how The Bad Seed peeling back the surface of placid mid-century “Leave It To Beaver”/”Father Knows Best” suburbia revealing it to be nothing but a self-serving sitcom-style fantasy, more than anything else, which btw rock ‘n’ roll did too when it first reached mainstream saturation that very same year (1956) raising all kinds of paranoia over juvenile delinquency and other assorted social panics…
…and if you’ve seen The Bad Seed before you can imagine the alarm of Briana’s parents at their young daughter’s fixation on the movie to the point of wanting to dress like her and quote lines from the movie which to be fair Briana was a precocious little Theater Kid as mentioned above already plotting to audition for the stage play if given the chance with the whole play-to-film progression of The Bad Seed likely helping account for why the actors (most of whom straight from the stage production) by-and-large deliver their lines in such exaggerated fashion to an extent rarely seen outside early John Waters movies…
…which gives the movie a certain camp appeal to be sure but which also makes the characters and the action even more unsettling and operatic (despite both murders being depicted off-stage and off-screen) and even more appealing to children no doubt so when Briana’s parents trashed or hid her personal copy of the movie it led to a self-reported tantrum to rival one of Rhoda’s in the movie and before long Briana’s big brother was driving her to the local Suncoast Video to purchase a new copy which wasn’t so much of a stretch apparently given that this was the same big bro who drove B. as a pre-teen letting her nearly blow out his speakers taking long drags off a candy cigarette and blasting Dr. Dre’s and Ice Cube’s “Natural Born Killaz” despite Tulsa’s 11pm curfew which wow (!) talk about a coupla juvenile delinquents…
…with Briana taking this intriguing chapter of her past and resetting it in the present bringing RH0DA into the realm of adulthood with all its difficult entanglements and disentanglements only made worse by the current sorry state of the nation esp. for women thus making it the perfect time for a Bad Seed resurrection and fyi it’s a zero and not a capital ‘O’ as the middle letter in RH0DA’s name as stylized by Briana…
…maybe to symbolize the black-hole vortex of psychic pain and society-wise spiritual emptiness at the center of our current collective psychosis but hey far be it for us to speculate or maybe it’s spelled that way just cuz it’s easier to google and find on streaming but either way we’re down with this whole Jekyll and Hyde approach to creating new creative personas and we’ve never once suspected that Briana would drown us in a lake or trap us inside a burning basement tho’ now we gotta wonder a little bit and that’s a healthy thing…
…and speaking of multiple personas we say the more the merrier and so Briana seeing as RH0DA’s a highly collaborative project not just between internal warring personalities and contradictions with B. being the first to credit and praise her collaborators in very non-Rhoda like fashion (!) for helping realize and expand on her vision (she’s tried out “Loved” in other formats but it never quite clicked) with this being Briana’s first production-driven, pop-oriented project having fronted rock & rollers Briana Layon & the Boys but never a project like this with dancers, video directors, producers and other behind the scenes musical collaborators. etc…
…with the producer in question being Dutch-Surinamese Brooklyn based DJ/mixer/producer Chew Fu who’s long been friends with B. from mutual Nuclears’ circles and who’s a big enough deal to be entrusted with official remixes made for such little-known artists as Rihanna, Lady Gaga (see/hear above), Timbaland and muthalovin’ Mariah Carey with Briana saying that in musical terms “‘LOVED’ came out exactly like I wanted it too” esp. with it being her “first time writing with a producer versus on my own, or with a band or writing partner”…
…and then there’s the video’s director, Séyla Hossaini (interviewed here!) who’s been friends with Briana for years ever since Séyla’s own band Toward Space (bass/lead vocals) likewise played with the Nuclears on multiple bills with the two forming a special girls in bands bond meaning that Briana has learned to trust Seyla’s creative instincts completely with little more than “this video should be like RH0DA’s dream” provided as guidance where nonetheless “she really captured everything that I felt the song was about and translated it into the visual so beautifully” as Briana offers gratefully…
…and having grown up in the South myself plus read a little Faulkner in high school to boot (not to mention Tennessee Williams, Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, et al.) it’s impressive how RH0DA’s song, video, persona etc. take Southern Gothic themes/imagery and translate them into the present with the genre’s “fixation [on] the grotesque, and a tension between realistic and supernatural elements” and with the beautiful yet tragic ruins Dunnington Mansion being the perfect stand-in for “the South” in this respect…
photo by Michelle Lobianco
…with this very same crumbling façade of Southern gentility being the maypole around which The Bad Seed dances as it progresses, becoming more and more patently obvious that the Penmark family is harboring a polite, well-spoken “cute as a button yet vicious as a Sid” pink-sized killer in a baby doll dress and before it was a play or a movie The Bad Seed started off as a novel by rarely remembered Southern Gothic novelist William March, a struggling Alabamian writer who died of a massive coronary episode only a month after his one and only big-hit-with-the-reading-public novel was published and just before it became a massive runaway success which how very tragic and thus Southern Gothic of him..
a book that not unlike Faulkner and Tennessee Williams before him seduces the reader with sundry niceties and incisive lyrical prose before gleefully puncturing the “gentility” of the seemingly charming characters and the Deep South more generally by association plunging a scalpel deep into the region’s raging heart of darkness, its Antebellum mansions, Southern belles, and downtown historic districts masking the original sin of slavery…
…a novel in which it’s also revealed that “Rhoda” is short for Rhododendron–a flowering plant symbolizing danger, bad portents, and the exercising of due caution seeing as the flower contains toxins called grayanotoxins that can be poisonous if ingested in sufficient quantities and lead to severe physical symptoms or psychoactive effects (“mad honey,” anyone?!) or sudden death (worst-case!) and yet they’re also said to symbolize spiritual and material prosperity (money money ain’t a problem!) which again brings us back to the whole thematic of a, inviting surface masking a more dangerous if not malevolent inner nature but a flower that was also associated with the women’s suffrage movement so how’s that for a contradictory (read: richly nuanced!) flower…
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“LOVED” by RH0DA
Produced by @chewfu
Guitars by @cameronkap
Drums by Caleb Brown
MUSIC VIDEO:
Director/Editor: Séyla Hossaini
DP/Colorist: Victor Collins
Assistant Director: Noah Peterson
MUA: Rachel Austin Boxley
Choreography by Miriam Hossaini
Dancers: Miriam Hossaini, Sarah Belanger, “Pole-Lotta-Splits,” and Erica Fox
“Prince” played by Tyler Cook
Art dept: Erica Fox
Wardrobe: Kassidy Reynolds and Briana Layon
Production Assistants: Lela Hernandez, Tyler Silva
Filmed at Dunnington Mansion