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UK rapper Little Simz’s music video for her latest single Gratitude, featuring footage from the #FeesMustFall movement and South African dancers and skaters, was met with much online enthusiasm last week.
Described as “incredible” in a radio interview by US hip-hop star Kendrick Lamar earlier this year, Little Simz – whose real name is Simbi Ajikawo (21) – is seen in Cape Town in a fedora and round sunglasses.
The song, from her album A Curious Tale of Trials + Persons, starts with the lyrics: “Oh, broken homes and lonely souls is all they know...”
The video shows students crowded in front of the Bremner building at the University of Cape Town (UCT), and then marching to the university’s upper campus.
Cape Town film maker Imraan Christian captured the footage and stills at UCT in October during student protests against rising tertiary fees.
On Friday, Christian told City Press he met the video’s director, Briton Jeremy Cole, when they made a kwaito documentary in Cape Town two years ago.
“We’ve kept in touch. He saw my photos of protest and liked them. Within a week, they were here shooting,” he said.
Christian wrote on Facebook: “For many of us, #FeesMustFall lit something in our essence that can’t quite be described, nor extinguished. We experienced a special energy, a radical connection, inconsolable pain.”
In the video, Rayne Moses, founder of Gugulethu-based youth upliftment organisation Nebula Skateboarding, does skating tricks in a street with Table Mountain in the background.
Moses said he was a big Little Simz fan, but sadly did not get to meet her. His cameo was filmed early last month.
“The video’s message is in line with our education goals, getting kids off the streets and into schools. She’s an incredible artist on the come-up, so it was a big honour,” he said.
The video also features slick dance moves by Jarrel Mathebula, founder of the community-based dance project Indigenous Dance Academy in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni.
It was released on redbull.com on Wednesday.
