Mr Eazi composes a short film for his recent single “The Don,” taking his creativity another step further and inviting fans into a new era of his musical identity.
Mr Eazi’s transformation into The Don takes on new form in his 6 minute short film inspired by the recently released single of the same name. PAM spoke with Eazi on the eve of his EP Something Else which featured The Don as the lead single, where he spoke in depth about what the title means to him. In essence, The Don became a way for Eazi to fuse his identity as a business mogul and artist. As founder of the emPawa Africa program, visionary of the African Music Fund, and renowned Bantu hitmaker, it has been hard to pin Eazi down.
However that all feels like it’s changing as Mr Eazi dives deeper into a new persona both mighty and menacing. “The darkness kind of like spoke to me,” Eazi said of the instrumental that plays as the soundtrack to his new short film. The darkness is manifested in the clip as Eazi depicts himself the leader of a quasi criminal empire; escaping from custody, tattooing his name on a shirtless band of youth, bestowing gifts of cash to family, and presiding over feasts in traditional garb. Much like Mario Puzo’s Don Corleone, Eazi has instilled a ritualized ethic into his role. We see him wading in waters to be washed clean by a group of elder women, and hear Eazi philosophize about his role in the world.
“There are a couple of things that are really important to a Don” Eazi says at the end of the film, “and that is family respect, trust, and loyalty. In fact loyalty is everything. Sometimes I’d even say loyalty over competence.” He continues, “on your way to becoming this person you always wanted to be you face everything. You see the love you see the joy you see the happiness you see the sadness you see the failure you see the hate and you feel the betrayal. But everything just brings you to this point. The point where you are right now. This is where you are meant to be at this time. Everything in life has gotten you to this stage and guess what? You’re a Don.”
These words resonated with an excerpt from our last conversation:
“Everything I’ve done musically has gotten me to this point where I can do certain things within the music business, and then I do a lot of other stuff outside of the music business. I just suddenly realised that everything I can do now is as a result of the music. So in a way I was thinking in my head that they were two different separate things. Then I just suddenly realised sometime last year that these two are intertwined because the reason why I’m able to do some things is because of who I am as Mr. Eazi, some things I’ve been able to achieve as Mr Eazi is because of my mind as an entrepreneur trying to build something.”
Imagery and personal philosophy aside, it’s an exciting step forward in the visual representation of the Eazi universe, and a testament to the creative hunger of Mr Eazi who continues to astonish with his artistry. Not only is The Don a new leap sonically, embracing the trap genre via a Killertunez production, but the short film is a narrative that surpasses the single minded thematics of other music videos in the space. Mr Eazi is consistently brining his work to the next level, and The Don, as an idea, a persona, a song, and a film is the most recent iteration of that ambition.
Listen to Mr Eazi in our One Dance playlist on Spotify and Deezer.
