BUGA’S MUSIC VIDEO IS A MIXTURE OF BANGA AND CALILOU SOUP THAT REFUSES TO BANG
Joseph Omoniyi
With a multi-coloured street carnival, a fusion of unrelated dramas, fascinating signature production design and cinematography, TG Omori, one of Nigeria’s finest and most talented music video directors, creates a much-anticipated visual for Kizz Daniel’s x Tekno’s Buga – the most shazamed track in the world in 2022.
From the first kick of the beat and sequence, TG Omori blesses us with a group of dancers costumed in beautiful green white green attire, headgear – a combination of English and traditional outfit, contrasted with their different shades of other colours, dancing with bottles of beer and then does intercuts with what looks like a fusion of Caribbean and Calabar street carnival in the city of Lagos, before he takes inspiration from the lyrics of the song itself – THE STORY.
THE STORY – an elderly man who probably slept off while waiting for his debtor to come out is suddenly jerked off by a concerned friend, telling him to “wake up!” and behold his debtor who has also been waiting in his car for his wife and two children to come out. The angry family man expresses his displeasure with his wife for taking so much time, as he turns on the ignition, his creditor suddenly jumps in front of the car impeding him from leaving without paying his debt. The creditor locks the debtor’s shirt in what looks like a back-and-forth argument between the two. After his plea kept falling on deaf ears, the debtor finally pays and he is let go with his family – INTERCUT WITH – a random guy (Sabinus) who also suddenly jerks off sleep to the sight and sound of the travelling carnival. A carnival of different nations of the world, but only represented with their flags. From the first floor of a story building, he dances joyously holding a Cameroonian flag, smiling beautifully at the moving carnival.
A group of teenage boys playing football, a section of the carnival lifting a shirtless guy excitedly holding what looks like an inter-class football competition trophy, another set of young guys playing football on a rooftop and more dance sequences. The motivation behind this idea might not be far from Kizz Daniels’s open intention and confession to perform this song at the opening ceremony of the Qatar 2022 World Cup. That might be the only forgivable explanation for this unrelated splash of colours and countries that fall short of the music itself – which speaks about waking up to look “get the money” you worked hard for and “living your life” confidently off your hard-earned money.
The visuals miss out on delivering on the popular dance moves that came with the song already. The viral dance moves that many big names across the globe caught its fever? The internet had gone agog with this song and its famous moves already. Unfortunately, the visuals could not deliver on that. We couldn’t even enjoy Tekno’s signature move on his own verse. It is not however out of point to submit that some of the viral ‘buga challenge’ videos are more satisfying compared to the seemingly high-budget music video offering.
The potential feel and vibes of the song don’t make it to the visuals, instead, TG Omori tries to force a World Cup feel and tone into the video. I hope this strategy works over time.
For the camera works, TG Omori blesses with the fluidity of his gimbal movements in the dance sequences, pushing in and out, high angle moves, coupled with the harmonious cuttings that seamlessly sync with the song and dance steps with relevant pace.
No doubt, TG Omori known for his extremely creative, aesthetic, energetic, out-of-the-box music video direction, crafted a kinetic work of art in the Buga visuals, but he clearly underdid himself in an attempt to outdo himself. The video version of Buga attempts to force a sporting movement song when the audio had created a movement of its own. A movement that cuts across every fabric of the society.
To say that the Nigerian number one skit champion according to the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA) 2022 is flying a Cameroonian flag in such a music video is less patriotism and equally lacks the understanding of audio-visual as soft power and a virile tool of international public relations.
In a nutshell, this videohttps://youtu.be/bLF90M96m2Q has successfully exposed the music as one stanza song. The rest is a repetition of beat and lyrics. Even if we struggle to understand the purpose of Tekno’s feature as he just repeats Kizz’ verse in almost a flat version for that matter, the video should have just blessed him with a redemption, focusing on his beautiful moves that went viral.
Picture credits- Internet
