Art - Underrated music video by MduComics - Dj Underscore Fire Burn
I love this 2009 music video, one of my favorites - I think it deserves more credit and more views.
On the surface, if one doesn't pay close attention, it seems like just a vibey, chill song with a nice beat ... but at the same time portrays several fairly deep topics one doesn't normally see covered in a music video ... it's also sort of almost affectionately showing characters portraying the real people sort of bleakly and stoically and emotionlessly and uncomplainingly every day doing the dirty, underpaid and underappreciated work of coal mining and of electricity generation which is a crucial backbone of all other economic activity, and showing how some of these parts of the economy work and interconnect between each other and between people ... in a cool chill music video.
This is real art.
There's an almost dual nature to the music video: One can either just chill and superficially enjoy the music, or think more about the deeper issues. This is not something you see every day in a music video anywhere. It is also very 'new South African' and conveys a sort of snapshot of this interesting, unique place and time in history, but with the topics touched on being quite universal. A cool music video that also shows the whole process of mining coal then generating electricity from it then distributing that electricity to homes, emerging from the backdrop of then-relatively-newly-post-Apartheid South Africa .. briefly also touching on issues of inequity.
This was done by MduComics: https://www.mducomics.co.za/
It came out in 2009, so unfortunately by today's standards the resolution is a bit low; one must take that into consideration.
Part of what I like about this video is this sort of dual nature - you are welcome either to just enjoy the 'cool vibe' of the song superficially, or if you like, offers deeper things to think about - never being preachy or leading, doesn't demand anything of you, the video just shows things as they are, and sort of 'shrugs'.
The music also has an apparent levity (almost), but with an undercurrent or mood of tension drawing it back to the serious elements in the visuals, and the apparent levity creates an almost poignant contrast with the serious elements. The lyrics may also have multiple metaphoric meanings, and can apply to one's own life, or to the characters in the video, e.g. 'keep going'.
There' s also almost a sort of simultaneous contrast of a subtle sense of vague optimism/construction/development (e.g. electricity lighting up an African village), versus a grim sense of gritty reality running throughout. The visuals are also simultaneously light and serious at once.
(I spent some time on/at South African mines when I was doing mining simulator development; I would often chat with the workers while trying to learn a bit of the African languages - was very interesting.)
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