In the wake of his latest album Soap Box, Canadian rapper Waahli releases a new video that captures the atmosphere of his concert in Cuba while clipping the song “Men Sou Yo”. Premiere and interview.
Last October, Waahli was finally released Soap Boxsecond album born in a pandemic period. “There were so many ups and downs but in the middle there was Soap Box,” tells us the artist who has accustomed us to purely feel-good tracks like “Bliyé-Sa” or other more politico-dramatic ones like “Rad”. Eclectic and entertaining, Soap Box is an all-terrain album: “we find Caribbean rap or bluesy swing, nostalgic and celebratory pieces, all sung in English, French and Haitian Creole”. Midway through the album-finishing process, Waahli took advantage of an invitation to the Havana World Music Festival to shoot the video for “Men Sou Yo,” a highly symbolic track from 2018, her first in Haitian Creole. “This song is regarding my diasporic journey”he says. “I’m proud of my history and the things we’ve accomplished, like being the first black republic in the Americas to gain independence in 1804.” Shooting this clip in Cuban soil reinforces its meaning, because it is also a “Tribute to the important presence of this Haitian community which migrated to the east of Cuba during the slave revolution”.
Directed by Montrealer Bruno Destombes, the video teleports us to different moments of the trip; a magical last minute on stage once morest the background of a blackout, a gentle awakening in a hotel room, a sunny trip in a taxi, a moment of relaxation with friends on the bus or a freestyle backstage… Everything is linked together coherently in an exercise in dynamic style that the director explains to us: “by choosing to treat this song and capturing it in different forms, live at the festival, in rehearsal in the studio and like a more classic music video, we let ourselves be carried away and we find ourselves in different contexts where music is the main character “. With Waahli’s Creole rap as a red thread, we savor different slices of life of this fine team in a mini-film sufficiently rhythmic to “keep the spectator alert until the end”.
The Soap Box album is still available here.
