Kid Sister

A music video about fingernail polish? Oh yes. Reminiscent of both Lil Mama’s “Lip Gloss” and the salon scenes from “Legally Blonde,” Kid Sister’s first single, “Pro Nails,” provides viewers a lens into the vivid world of manicures. The camera scans colorful walls of bottles filled with nail polish, catching glints of sparkling salmons and auburns.

Unknown to most, Kid Sister hails from Chicago and spits her club rhymes for independent label Fool’s Gold. For the video, fellow Chi-town native Kanye West provides a verse and cameo appearance, neither of which lend much to the video. The Louis Vuitton Don provides some of his least spectacular lyrics thus far and a somewhat irrelevant presence. Also, watching Kanye utter the words, “Did you see the way she got her toes did?” is mildly disconcerting.

Moreover, the video does a bad job of conveying Kid Sister’s message—namely, that she’s hot and her dominance of the industry is imminent. Mostly, the video entails Kid Sister sitting idly in a nail salon, waving her freshly brushed and glittered cuticles at the camera while dropping self-absorbed rhymes. Hardly a good visual marriage for the catchy, clubby beat provided by A-Trak, who also makes an appearance.

Still, director Fleischer provides keen originality to match Kid Sister’s potential club hit. Inspired by the art of fingernail design, the video features numerous leg-like fingers artistically break dancing on the salon’s tables. These dancing digits show off the colorful nail designs, which shine with an intensity that Kid Sister hopes to one day match. They also supply some necessary choreography in an otherwise static video.

Despite an awkward Kanye and a mostly sedentary Kid Sister, the video’s clever finger dance sequences and colorful (literally) staging keeps the viewer’s attention for the full three and a half minutes. Quite the feat for a song about fingernails.