Review: Kwabena Kwabena's ADULT MUSIC video

I am just watching the ADULT MUSIC video for the 9th time going ten. Each time I have tried to understand every scene angle, shot and act in the video.

I love the song, and the combination of the two unique artists, Kwabena Kwabena and Samini, I think is an A mark for me in music collaborations.

From two music worlds out came this song, adult music with so much prospects and potential – making waves I have long seen in a while. However, I am more concerned about the video.

I know most of you will be saying this is an afterthought critic, but you will agree that the Adult Music video is a very lazy video- no inspiration and even lacks clarity in its storyline.

Don’t look at it for the fun of it because that was not the purpose for shooting the music video, but consider the story telling bit, communicate a message, graphics and all that.

For those of you who don’t know, ADULT MUSIC is an Afro Pop song, or in Ghanaian we say Afro Hi-Life. Whichever way you see it, its best known among other things but paramount amongst them is storytelling.

The video in all intent and purposes missed that. It was acting worse than torture for me and many people I have heard comment on it.

Scenes like the massage especially failed to make sense to many people including myself. Why the two of them- why couldn’t another story be told with Samini. After all, his verse stood on its own feet. For my screechy old brain, you would imagine Samini tickling a lady with a feather to provoke some laughter if something nasty in a pool would be too expensive.

Kwabena Kwabena was not in shape for the song- having been relative silent in the industry for a while he decided to let himself go, bringing that I am a husband body to shoot a music video. We are not saying you should have a six-pack or be macho, but at least you should be fit and look it too especially when you decide to take your clothes off. We should be learning you know.

As for Samini, the little said about him the better, after all he showed he was not an actor and also incapable of playing a simple love role. His facial expression was one thing and his body language was also another.

The opening scene in the room was perfect and well fitted, but from there, things went bad. You could have used one person for the massage if you think it was necessary (because I think it was not) - in that way, Samini would tell another story, give us a lot more scenes to watch and longer time to fully enjoy the song.

What was having the artists stand and watch a single lady pouring water on herself, is there an abstract meaning I am missing. That scene is really depressing for me.

I cannot complain about the quality of the picture because it was good. Shooting a video with Camera RED is a guaranteed good quality, but you only get this kind of frozen video either from the directing or the editing. With close to five thousand cedis at your disposal and two clear days to shoot a video, what possibly went wrong to produce this output? Of course, there are videos with lower budgets better with interesting stories to tell either sexual or whatever.

To think that Award winning director Nana Kofi Asihene worked on this project makes me fumble for words to describe some of the scenes. What was the motive for bringing the crowd at the end, it was simply a misfit in the below average video.

Ghana is currently struggling to compete in music videos with our biggest rival Nigeria; even though in music quality we are head to head with them. Nigerian music videos are getting ten times airplay on cable TV around the world.

The strength and potential of the song to compete is not in doubt but generally speaking, with a good song whose video is nothing to write home about in relative terms how do you call that? Why must one prefer to listen to the audio of a song even when the video is being played or within my reach?

There must be something wrong- unless the artists and the director forgot the importance of a good video and the impact it has on a song. This video has completely killed/killing the song.

We cannot continue to do things the simple way; we must grow the industry in every aspect. The audio visual section of the industry is lagging.

In a scale of 1 to 10, this video will score 5 for the quality and the intro. I will like to ask Nana Kofi Asihene if he is aware that this work is a dent on his celebrated list of achievements; why do something that will at the end dent your image?

Watch the Video below