Since the 1990s, Tony Cokes’s video works generate complex layers of meaning through the juxtaposition of basic elements such as language and sound. Typically, he animates existing texts from disparate sources—including academic writing, popular news media, and even spoken or written “rants” by public figures—and sets these words to pre-existing music. Although this format appears straightforward, his specific choices of text and music are often disjunctive, encouraging a deeper engagement with the materials. Cokes’s signature format belies a larger intention to tackle challenging social issues such as race, urban politics, and murky histories in multivocal, nonreductive ways. Starting from the accessible material of pop music and found text, his artworks open up ways of reading and listening that can speak to many different audiences.