- Music visuals continues the dialogue on mental health issues among creatives
- Makgadikgadi Salt Pans gives the music video superb scenic aesthetics
GOSEGO MOTSUMI
After releasing a single titled “Troubled” that sparked conversations on mental health issues at the end of last year, the Heartstrings and Heartbeats campaign premiered the song’s visuals on the world’s leading music video platform, Vevo, last Friday.
The goal was to continue to stimulate public discourse on mental health among creative people and use of music as an effective public engagement tool. “The release remained virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic that still poses danger to physical interactions,” Music Video Director, Kirat ‘Kiz’ Singh, told Time Out. “The music video is expected to continue to spark dialogue on mental health issues that affect the community with hopes of solutions that will emerge from such interactions.”
Botswana’s iconic four-string guitarist Solly Sebotso and songbird Mpho Sebina teamed up with Danish rapper J-Spliff and producer Kirat ‘Kiz’ Singh to create crisp visuals that were shot on location at Makgadikgadi Salt Pans. The world’s largest saltpans provided a unique expanse of landscape of scenic beauty for the music video.
For the video shoot that was scheduled for August this year, Sebina flew into the country from Johannesburg and J-Spliff was fresh out of the plane from Denmark. “The team ventured out to create an adventurous art piece fusing different cultures through music,” said Singh. “This was the culmination of the Denmark team’s two-week long visit to Botswana that saw them engage in co-creation workshops as well as collaborative studio sessions for the Heartstrings and Heartbeats project.”
Video production credits include Executive Production and Direction by Kirat ‘Kiz’ Singh who shot the video alongside local company, Industry Media. Other producers are Project Co-founder Abraham Mamela, Alexandra Ignatencu, Leroy Nyoni, as well as the artistic Sebina.
Heartstrings and Heartbeats is a two-year multi-stakeholder public engagement project aimed at exploring the science behind mental health issues among creatives while placing communities and those who are impacted and inflicted as drivers of their own solutions.
The first phase of the project is to foster cultural relations between Danish and Botswana music artists and trigger dialogue on issues of mental health among creative people. This will culminate in a campaign to raise public awareness inform research. The second phase of the project will bring together stakeholders to co-create solutions that utilise action research to explore mental health among creative people.