Eric Benet - Spiritual Thang (Video)

SEP 23 1996 · 12:00

Eric Benet - Spiritual Thang (Video) (1996) Director: McG Era: Mid-90s New Jack / Neo-Soul Transition (1996) - A pivotal moment when smooth R&B began bridging the rhythmic polish of New Jack Swing with the organic warmth of the emerging neo-soul movement, anchored by Warner Bros. debut releases. High curatorial value as a documented early-career work by a director (McG) who would become a major Hollywood feature filmmaker, applied here to an R&B context rarely discussed in accounts of his career. Simultaneously preserves a textbook example of mid-90s quiet storm/neo-soul-adjacent visual aesthetics: low brightness, long takes, theatrical performance framing, and spiritual lyrical themes rendered in intimate chiaroscuro. The video is a cultural artifact at the intersection of two significant transitions, in R&B's sonic evolution and in music video direction's pipeline to mainstream cinema. Context: Released in November 1996 as the second single from Eric Benét's debut album True to Myself (Warner Bros. Records, September 24, 1996), 'Spiritual Thang' emerged during a pivotal transitional moment in Black American popular music. The mid-1990s saw the commercial dominance of New Jack Swing beginning to wane, with artists like D'Angelo, Maxwell, and Erykah Badu laying the groundwork for the neo-soul movement. Benét's smooth, soulful approach, blending classic soul vocabulary with contemporary urban production, positioned this video within that emergent bridge aesthetic. 'Spiritual Thang' became a top-ten R&B hit, signaling mainstream appetite for more introspective, melodically sophisticated Black music outside the harder edges of hip-hop and rap. Director notes: Confirmed as director of 'Spiritual Thang' by RateYourMusic.com credits listing, corroborated by Wikipedia's entry on the True to Myself album, which identifies 'Spiritual Thang' as 'the McG directed' second single from the record. The single was released November 1996 on Warner Bros. Records as part of Eric Benét's debut album True to Myself. This video was part of McG's early-career period directing R&B and alternative music videos before his pivot to major feature films, contemporaneous with his work on Korn's first videos and his early Sugar Ray collaborations.