Shan Phearon's video for London-via-Coventry rapper Jevon addresses this intriguing artist's background, and love of Brazil, through a metaphorical journey.Shot last October - and here presented in the Director's Cut - it’s a kinetic, gothic opera playing on the idea of ‘current-life-as-the-afterlife'. Na Hora addresses Brazilian post-colonialism and modern day right-wing fascism - replete with Jair Bolsonaro lookalikes - with the artist traversing through stages of Purgatory as well as moments of Heaven and inevitably Hell.The video is also structured in an innovative way, so that other tracks from Jevon's debut album, intercut with the main track during it's duration.Phearon comments: “It was enriching and inspiring working with the artist and his team to explore not only Jevon’s complex personal story as well as the difficult history behind Brazilian and Hispanic/Latin Southern American injustice, fusing two narratives - one personal, one social - into one larger analogy."I tried to write and design it in a way for the fans to taste a couple of other intriguing moments from his new LP, but all housed within the lead single. So we have song-switches like skits or interludes within the single/video, as opposed to more obvious chronological order, or just epilogue-style like classic ‘90s/'00s rap videos where they would stick another single or album cut excerpt at the end."I don’t consider it a 'music film' in the traditional sense, but it could be a progressive delivery mechanism for an artist’s music and stories that I’d like to try more with in future. I also think it adds a surprise-inducing, almost edge-of-seat energy, which services this particular narrative.”
Promonews - 1st Apr 2021