Chart Mondays: NF - Let You Down

December 25, 2017 Critic Jonni 1 Comments

Let You Down - NF |

Looking at the chart for this backdated date - which is 25 December 2017 Christmas Day - Ed Sheeran is still at number one with "Perfect". This opens the top ten of the UK Singles Chart to my Chart Mondays review. I was planning on doing Rak-Su's "Dimelo" featuring Wyclef Jean & Naughty Boy, but the song doesn't have an official music video, which leaves me with a couple of choices. I decided on this one, purely because it has the less amount of hits on YouTube; who knows what that means in coming weeks, but I look forward to seeing what happens to the UK Chart. Music videos rarely make me cry, but this one certainly did, following in the footsteps of P!nk's "What About Us"; I swear I'm becoming an emotional wreck when it comes to personal emotional music videos. Watch an old man watching his son, NF, drown and then burn in a fire, then look down on him in a coffin, feeling sad he was never proud of him, with a mighty twist at the end in the music video for hit single "Let You Down".

NF, real name Nathan Feuerstein, is an American Christian hip-hop artist who has a total of four album releases to date. All of his singles have charted on the US Billboard Christan Songs chart, but this is the one that has truly given NF a massive international hit. It's true, it really does take just one song, and this is the one. I'm pretty sure this is the start of NF releasing chart hit after chart hit as more and more people discover his music. This song peaked at number two in Sweden and Norway, number four in Ireland, and number six in Finland and the UK. "Let You Down" was written by Nathan Feuerstein.

Directed by Nathan Feuerstein and Patrick Tohill, this music video hits every viewer in the heart; if the song wasn't emotional enough, paired with this music video it truly gives us all, all sorts of feels. It has one twist of an ending too.

The opening scene sees an old man walk down to a dock on a lake. As soon as the chorus finishes and NF's rap launches in, a young man is seen flailing around in the water, fully-clothed, drowning. The old man does nothing, as he watches his son, played by NF, die in the water. As the chorus returns, the older guy lip-syncs to the song, as if the chorus is words from himself.

The second verse kicks in and we're transported to a field where a car is surrounded by flames. Inside is NF, once again, as his father watches on - once again. The chorus comes back as the car lights up and burns completely. The final verse comes in as we see a coffin in an open grave, the old man opens the lid and reveals his son lying there; he's in shock and dismayed at himself.

We return to the drowning scene as we near the end of the video. This is where the full-on twist comes in. We see a close-up of the father's face, then a close-up of his arm, which displays a tattoo of a word starting with R-E-A - which we can presume is the same tattoo NF has which actually says "Real Music"; and, the shocker of them all, the old man's wife, we presume, comes out and says "Nathan?" as if that's his name. Meaning the whole video is an old man looking back on his younger self, proclaiming that he let himself down. It's such a shocking but interesting twist.

Most people are running with the father-son idea though, and let's just presume they had the same name and matching tattoos. This made me cry because this is something very real in my life, as well as many other people's lives. All I want to do is make my parents proud, and all that I have achieved to date is something I am proud of, myself; and I know I'm going to achieve so much more, but my father is always putting me down and it does make me want to give up sometimes. This music video is beyond personal, and so is the song. NF has created a masterpiece, one we all need to watch and listen to! He's certainly has become my new favourite rapper, singing about real things and real life.

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