{"id":78088,"date":"2021-04-19T14:27:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T13:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/?p=78088"},"modified":"2021-04-19T14:28:04","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T13:28:04","slug":"mopiano-with-u","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/mopiano-with-u\/","title":{"rendered":"Mopiano premieres his \u201cWith U\u201d music video"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mopiano\u2019s latest video takes RnB to new dimensions with a Pan-African touch.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Mopiano\u2019s early music inspiration comes from the family. His uncle recorded reggae in The Gambia and collaborated on Dr. Alban\u2019s Hello Africa<\/a> \u2013 a song that launched Alban\u2019s musical career and saw him rise to godlike status among 1990s euro-dance fans. His journey started around 12 or 13, when his Dad bought him a synth to fool around with. \u201cI taught myself to cover Akon\u2019s tracks and whatever American hip-hop or RnB my siblings were into<\/em>.\u201d That\u2019s also how he got his name. Young Muhamad \u2013 Mo for short \u2013 was always playing piano. Mopiano. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy first real breakthrough was in 2015 with my brother. We had this band called DEZYxMO and did this Project X<\/a> song that broke 1 million Spotify streams in less than a year. That was huge for us.<\/em>\u201d Fast forward a few years and Mopiano\u2019s ready to drop his first EP with Majestic Casual Records in May. Ahead of this he\u2019s releasing \u201cWith U\u201d, a deeply intimate and emotional song he wrote, produced, and performed. But this far from being a solo project. In fact, the video brought together a super talented team of creatives, many of whom come from the African diaspora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congolese director Jean-Luc Mwepu<\/a> was an obvious choice. \u201cNot because he is African, just because I love his movies, they\u2019re super dope, and I wanted this video to be more of a movie than a clip.\u201d<\/em> The chemistry was felt instantly and Jean-Luc brought his sister Desiree, a costume designer with him, as well as the lead actress Linda Ndikumana, who comes from Burundi. Also there from day one is Sulekha Dar (from Somalia) who\u2019s been working with Mopiano for a couple years now. This kind of Pan-African reunion wasn\u2019t planned. It\u2019s more something that came together naturally and involves many gifted folks from Europe as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is a stunning short film about protecting that which we value most. In this tale of unexpected betrayal, the scenery and pace of a Hollywood espionage thriller collide with abstract images of the human spirit. And while the song deals with universal topics such as love and heartbreak, \u201cI also wanted this to be a good representation for people of color, you know, something beautiful we can be proud of.<\/em>\u201d Mission accomplished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“With U”<\/a> is out now via Majestic Casual Records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to Mopiano in our Songs of the Week playlist on Spotify<\/a> and Deezer<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mopiano\u2019s latest video takes RnB to new dimensions with a Pan-African touch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":78114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3944],"tags":[37304,37297,241],"location":[],"yst_prominent_words":[37321,28531,8995,9178,8407,8414,37320,37319,8402,8435,17491,9006,8400,8412,8543,8945,37295,8619,8449,37322],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78088"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78088"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=78088"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=78088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}