Words by Jesse Serwer
YouTube has been a blessing and a curse for dancehall videos, enhancing their quantity and visibility but rarely their quality. Director Winston Mayhew‘s visually stimulating work for Busy Signal and others are often exceptions, and his latest clip, for a medley featuring all six tunes on Daseca’s tempestuous Category 5 riddim, doesn’t disappoint. Astutely, each artist is filmed in starkly different yet character-appropriate environs—party dude Serani lounges in a rum shack, rootsman I-Octane’s in a weed-clouded car, Mavado’s in (where else) a cemetery, Bugle’s out on a pier in the harbor (Okay, we’re not exactly sure how that particular setting suits his character but it looks good). The end result is a rare YouTube-era video with a truly wide and original breadth of Jamaican scenery. On the musical tip, the Gully Gad’s appearance is saved, climactically, for last but it’s Serani’s infectuous turn on “Clouds” that had us rewinding the month-old riddim release (Which you can buy at Amazon or iTunes, or stream below on Soundcloud). We’re not sure of the name of the hand-based raindance ‘Rani and friends are doing, but we have a hunch it may be a major source of precipitation this summer.