Cibo Matto - Know Your Chicken (Video)

What this video is

Released May 7, 1995, 'Know Your Chicken' arrived during a moment of intense underground ferment in New York City's downtown music scene. Cibo Matto — formed by Japanese expatriates Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori in 1994 — represented an irreverent, genre-fluid counterpoint to both grunge's dominance and the emerging Britpop wave. Their food-obsessed lyrical universe and trip-hop/rock hybridity placed them at the…

Why it matters

A landmark artifact of mid-90s NYC art-indie and trip-hop-adjacent alternative pop. Cibo Matto's food-lyric aesthetic and J-influenced eclecticism carved a genuinely novel niche in American indie music. The video's MTV success bridged underground downtown NY art culture and mainstream alternative…

The director

American director of commercials and music videos. Studied advertising design at Syracuse University and Saint Martin's School of Art and Design, London. Entered music video directing after serving as 'cruise director' on the 1994 Lollapalooza tour, where he…