Eric Benet - Spiritual Thang (Video)

What this video is

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.…

Why it matters

As an early neo-soul-adjacent R&B video, 'Spiritual Thang' documents the aesthetic grammar of the mid-90s quiet storm visual tradition: dark, intimate settings, slow editorial pacing, and performance-centered framing that prioritized emotional sincerity over spectacle. It also marks an early…

The director

Joseph McGinty Nichol (born August 9, 1968, Kalamazoo, Michigan), known professionally as McG, began his career as a record producer and music video director in the early 1990s. He accumulated over fifty music video credits before transitioning to feature…