#abstrackte
Worlasi’s: One Life
Dir: Abstrakte
Worlasi’s latest song, questions life, death and the after life - he explores why we should care more about the life we have here on earth, committing to making it a better place instead of using heaven as our escape route. Watching the video, you get a real sense of the themes pushing through and you know the creative team behind it worked hard on making it so.
Worlasi tells me about what the inspiration for this song came from; “Sometimes things that confuse me you know inspires me, like I don’t understand why somethings are going on so I think about it and I just write about it. I don’t understand why some people can give so much time to God and forget about the fact that they have responsibilities like their children. I think people should more focus on helping other human beings or helping themselves to get better for us to get better. If we are all better, it helps all of us, you understand? All we think about is how people think about us, in terms of our religion and how close we are to God; we think about that so much that we forget that we have kids to take care of, you understand? And it’s sad that the kids actually need us, they rely on us to be better people. That’s what inspired me.”
Personally watching the seven minute long video, I’m glad there are subtitles - I mean I could listen to this guy sing all day, but as a non Ewe speaking/understanding Ghanaian, l’m glad to know what he’s saying. The video starts with a contemplating Worlarsi at the Abelempke train station heading to Achimota, when a bunch of happily playful children come running past him - the entire video happens during his and Sena Dagadu’s train ride.
Worlasi gets on the train and starts to contemplate about life, how we should appreciate it, because we have so much yet refuse to see. It sounds contemplative, questioning - now I don’t know how old he is, but in my mind he’s in his mid to late 20’s so for someone so young (probably) to speak with such experience and knowledge in his voice, is surprising but yet welcome.
Throughout the video, there are scenes of normal life and hard work, but mostly sadness, violence, only balanced by the vibrance and care free nature of the children. Almost as if to say if we lived life care free like children did, we would appreciate it more. You will also notice the bright colours and vibrance of the visuals, from the costumes and props to the general colour gradient of the video - although there are some sad scenes, the joy of life has still been captured in the colours and faces of children throughout the video - also acting as a balance.
Pause. Enter the Goddess of Soul and Hip hop herself, Sena Dagadu, bringing with her a whole other spiritual and upbeat vibe to the song - rapping over scenes of two children playing around their neighbourhood, imagination and freedom allowing them to escape for a while.
I was curious about the collaboration, so I asked Worlasi how Sena became a part of this song and he said; “after I did the song, wrote everything and put it together, I told them (management) that I wanted to put Sena or Manifest on the song and I was like who did they think was more suitable and then most of them said Sena and I was like cool lets put Sena on it. We realised there was also another song for Manifest, so we were like let’s make this Sena. We didn’t think it would happen though but we sent it to her and she was cool with it.”
Followers of Yoyo tinz will know Worlasi and the big fuss we made about his first project/EP/album, whatever you want to call it Nusē - which was absolutely incredible and made me a fan even from the intro, to Black Man, to Possible to Freedom. His lyricism, voice and subject matter caught my attention as well as his management and label because you can tell they put some budget behind this video. There are tracking shots, choreography, actors and even the occasional drone shot.
I wanted to know if he felt any pressure going into his next project or did he going into with no expectations/limitations and hoped it will translate to the audience, and he said; “yea but I won’t call it pressure but more of a guide. I don’t have to do the same thing, it has to be better but at the same time it has to be in the range of who Worlasi is, you understand? Yea, so the pressure was not repeating the same thing, no monotony, different but better. I’ll say it’s a guide but not pressure, but above all I have to vibe with what I do before it comes out”
I really like this song and video to match (of which Worlasi is keen to give all credit to the Abstrakte team), if this is an indication of how his new project is going to sound, then I’m definitely still a fan.
4 stars
Review by team member Hephzie
