It is almost a year since Mani Martin and Eddy Kenzo shot a video for the remix of “Afro”. However, it is only a few days ago that the video emerged on Youtube, making it perhaps one of the longest awaited local music videos in recent years. “Afro” is the lead single and title track of Mani Martin’s latest album, which he dropped in late 2016. Early last year, Mani Martin reached out to his BET award-winning Ugandan counterpart with a view to collaborating on a remix of the song. Upon listening to the original song, Eddy Kenzo immediately gave it a nod, and promptly invited Martin over to Kampala for a studio session. In September last year, Kenzo flew to Kigali to shoot a video for the song. The project was handled by top local video producer Meddy Saleh, who has since stopped shooting music videos in an apparent move to concentrate on bigger projects. The “Afro” remix video was one of the last music video projects that Meddy Saleh handled. The video clip was uploaded on Thursday, June 21, which is International World Music Day. Shot at the Kwetu Film Institute in Kagugu, the video features a live music set, with the two musicians singing and entertaining a live and dancing audience. The dancing is accentuated by Itorero Inkindi Itatse traditional dance troupe. But why did the video come out after such a long wait? “Yes, this project really took long to come out but it didn’t have any specific reason other than the production process. The video director had come up with the idea to shoot some more images to add on it,” explained Mani Martin in a telephone interview. Even with this, however, the final video only bears images from the first shoot at the Kwetu Film School. “We decided to keep the footage we shot before because it could take more time waiting,” he said. Mani Martin added: “The video is amazing. I loved it and Kenzo loved it as well. We also appreciate how people are receiving it very positively.”
