Sandbox

The first time I saw the music video for West Coast rap group King Fantastic’s “Why? Where? What?” I was pleasantly surprised not as much by a nude and dancing Kristina Rose as by the porn actress’ ability to lip synch.

Adult-film specialists don’t easily cross over to mainstream media; look no further than Sasha Grey’s nearly unwatchable stint on “Entourage.” Rose, however, may prove the rare example of a starlet able to transcend the confines of a half-open laptop.

“Why? Where? What?” envisions Rose as an enigmatic home wrecker masquerading as a replacement for a cleaning woman named Maria. For reasons hereto unknown, she gains entry into the home of a young married couple under false pretenses and proceeds to destroy everything inside while singing along to the song, which blares from an iPod dock on the kitchen counter.

And Rose is beyond incredible—she’s a flower blooming before our eyes.

Wreaking havoc in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the shower, she’s lifting us to a higher level, a place where our mothers have no reign over the domestic sphere and our fathers never come home from work. But all that is secondary to what her mouth does.

Every movement of her lips adds to the illusion that there is no iPod, no speakers, no recorded audio; there is only Kristina. Rose and King Fantastic meld into one, and for a brief 4:05, a sub 100-pound white woman is Killer Reese One and Troublemaker (the two members of King Fantastic).

In the song’s ultimate verse, Rose—stripped bare of the rags society has allotted her—climbs a ledge and stands atop all of Hollywood. Here, she issues a proclamation one-part Marxist and one-part Marchiavellian for the city of Los Angeles: “I practice what I preach/I preach what I practice/Violence is the equalizer/No tax brackets.”

That which we call a rose, by no other name would smell as sweet.