Riding the momentum of his latest album Soap Box, the Canadian rapper Waahli releases a new video that brings to life the atmosphere of his concert in Cuba with the track “Men Sou Yo”. Premiere and interview.
Last October, Waahli finally released Soap Box, his second album made during pandemic. “There were so many ups and downs, but in the middle there was Soap Box,” says the artist who has so-far brought us feel-good tracks including “Bliyé-Sa” or the more political and dramatic ones like “Rad”. Eclectic and entertaining, Soap Box is an all-around album: “it includes Caribbean rap or bluesy swing, nostalgic and celebratory pieces, all sung in English, French and Haitian Creole.” While finishing the album, Waahli accepted an invitation to the Havana World Music Festival to shoot the video for “Men Sou Yo,” a highly symbolic song of 2018, and his first in Haitian Creole. “This song is about 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 video on Cuban soil reinforces its meaning, as it is also a “tribute to the important presence of this Haitian community that migrated to eastern Cuba during the slave revolution.“
Directed by Montrealer Bruno Destombes, the video transports us to different moments of the journey; a magical moment on stage against the backdrop of a power outage, a gentle awakening in a hotel room, a sunny trip in a vintage cab, a relaxing moment with friends on the bus or a freestyle backstage… Everything follows in a coherent manner in a dynamic style. “By choosing to treat this song and capturing it in different forms,” the director explains, “live at the festival, in rehearsal in the studio and in the way of a more classic music video, we let ourselves be carried and we find ourselves in different contexts where the music is the main character.” With Waahli’s Creole rap as a common thread, we savor different slices of life of this fine team in a mini-film that is sufficiently rhythmic to “keep the spectator on the alert until the end.”
Soap Box available here.
