On my way to Jinja over the
weekend, I together with other passengers were treated to a selection of some
of Lucky Dube’s (RIP) music videos and as I watched these amazing videos with
very powerful political messages, I felt like a certain gap I had had in my
life was being filled and here am not talking about a political gap but rather
a gap that was created as a result of a desire to watch some authentic music
videos that were not riding on the sexual innuendo in the video to capture the
viewers attention. All the way [over half way the journey] I had kept my
headset on as I listened to soothing music because the videos that were playing
then were a selection of today’s cotemporary videos but when Lucky Dube’s
videos started playing, the music coming through my headsets could not compete
with what my eyes were seeing. There was a lot of creativity displayed, a lot of
passion as evidenced by Dube in his singing, there was no monotony as each
video was unique, there were no naked/half naked women; the videos were simply
irresistible.
Dube’s videos reminded me of Michael Jackson’s
(RIP) videos because for me the videos of those two artistes have a lot in
common.
Among other similarities is the artiste’s
touch that you can feel as you watch any of their videos.
I mean watch Dube’s videos and
you will feel a Dube touch; watch a Michael Jackson video and you will feel the
presence and touch of Michael in each of them.
Sadly today, you watch any of the
top 10 videos today and guess whose touch you will feel; the director’s touch.
If you want to prove this, watch a couple of videos by the same producer and
you might be tempted to think they are all by the same music artiste.
Just like we have different songs
coming out uniquely because they are written by different artistes who have a
wide diversity in creativity, I think the video directors should stick to
directing and ask the artistes to create their own concepts and they [the
directors] help them make those concepts come to life.
Of course the artistes also need
to think not just about their audio pieces but also the videos so they can get the
exact message they want passed out passed out in their videos else they risk
the directors giving the videos another message all together.
