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A slew of new music videos has been released recently by local artists. Phumlani S Langa rounds them up.
Priddy Ugly featuring YoungstaCPT and Wichi 1080 – Ho$h Ho$h
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This starts off with that old-school feature presentation bumper, similar to something you might see at the beginning of a Quentin Tarantino movie. They even included a credit sequence as a fragmented version of the Ho$h Ho$h instrumental plays, giving the video a polished feel.
This, in my occasionally humble opinion, is one of the hardest local rap records of the past two years. These three should just form a group and be done with it, as this was the perfect follow-up to the timeless Come To My Kasi (2016). The video runs for 11 minutes and sees them staging a kidnap, although I feel the story could’ve been tighter. If they had perhaps included a scene where Priddy and his boys are loading up to find their prey in the urban jungle, followed by a chase of sorts in a car or on foot. I also would’ve asked the three Modiselle sisters to be my masked assassins. Imagine that.
As it is, Priddy chills in the back seat of a dark Beemer in a scene shot much like an old school Missy Elliott or Busta Rhymes video with the fish-eye lens effect. The lick they hit is a bit lengthy, poor Thulani Mtsweni of Isidingo fame is roughed up in the car, on the street and in a warehouse.
What I liked was the panache packaging of this presentation, which ends as stylishly as it began – with outro credits, a hidden ending and a sign that this story is not over.
Kid Tini featuring Styles P and Stogie T – Get Money
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This is Ambitiouz Entertainment flexing its muscle in a way that is conducive to the art, and not all these rumours of allegedly swindling artists out of their money.
I don’t know how they got US veteran Styles P on this. The Ghost of The Lox holds down the second verse on the hardest rap record of the year for me, with his scene probably shot in Yonkers, where he’s from.
Kid Tini has perhaps the most questionable sequence in the video. He’s in a cage surrounded by people and looks as though he is being kept against his will or as some kind of beastly crowd pleaser.
The video has been put through a good edit and the imagery is clean, particularly for Stogie’s verse.
Seated on a wooden bench on a cliff overlooking a stunning vista, he raps while people in African attire surround him, cheering on two stick fighters.
Later we see Stogie whipping a two-seater Porsche. Being the only luxury rapper around, they nailed his visual representations.
Kid Tini did right by ensuring that he armed himself with a serrated set of verbal darts as the other two gentlemen are malicious on the mic.
Luna Florentino featuring Manu WorldStar – Hold it Down
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This beat knocks in a manner I like. It’s a sample-based instrumental dressed as a wavy slapper, the kind of piece a fighter might play as they shadowbox their way down to a ring. Luna loves the mob effect in his videos, and it makes sense as both these brothers are members of Punchline, a group that graced the cover of #Trending a few months ago.
I chilled with these cats in studio and this was one of the songs they played for me. I was stunned by the composition. It sounds like the trap you may have heard in the Meech era, when songs such as BMF by Rick Ross and anything by Young Jeezy had the streets on smash. I urged the guys to get that heat on the block as soon as possible, but I didn’t think they would rush things, which I fear they may have with these visuals.
Directed by Kuda Jemba, the video doesn’t match the intensity of the track. They’re shown chilling in an alley, blowing smoke clouds and vibing to the music. It looks like a complex of sorts, I just pray it isn’t somewhere like Wits Junction as these brothers have somewhat of a foothold in the student soundscape. Luna moulded this beat artfully and it even got Manu WorldStar, who is a singer, to let loose with a tough sounding 16 bars that would force many spitters I know to consider rewrites. This should’ve been shot in an emphatic style. Bruce Wayne Beemers and James Bond watches, you get me?
Frank Casino featuring Cassper Nyovest – Sudden
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Directed by Laurenzo Dlamini, this video has a suspense or thriller feel to it like we’re witnessing a saga – the saga of Frank Casino and the chokehold he’ll have on the rap game if his album sounds this good throughout.
He gazes over the city from a balcony as Armand Assante’s character in the cinematic classic by Ridley Scott, American Gangster, explains to Frank (Lucas, the notorious drug dealer from New York) that you can be successful and have enemies or you can be unsuccessful and have friends. It is a choice we make.
Jay-Z sampled the same bit on his slept-on American Gangster album (2007).
This is a very glossy video and the beat is butter, so too are the raps.
Frank even gets Cass to pull through with a witty verse, which very seldom happens without accompanying dance moves and bottle tricks. He kept all that at home and although his verse doesn’t boast the widest use of vocabulary, the darts land where they were intended to.
We will need to discuss Boity and Cassper’s flow sounding like it was formulated on the same writing pad or in the same studio, but that’s a matter for another day.
The video simmers down with an instrumental from another Casino song, which also sounds worth a listen. If this is what we can expect from his debut album then I may just go buy this record, hard copy fam.
