Ebeneza’s music videos have been able to address political issues of representation through authorship. As a creator of art…music videos are a medium in which you can display your cultural values. Ebeneza’s work advocates raw and honest representations of Black culture and diasporic experiences. He says, “I think it is important because there is a huge gap in the market and it is important for the next generation to grow up seeing content where they can truly identify themselves. 

Sometimes, artists themselves feel uninterested in the visual message that accompanies their music and do not feel strongly enough about cultural values to reflect them in their art, however, the auteur/director will take on that role. Unfortunately, too many times the auteur/director is just a shadow of the artist and all the credits miss them. Yet, when an auteur is thought out like Ebeneza they become their independent artists, where he directs himself with the influence of no one. This is exactly what happened when Little Simz, British artist asked Ebeneza to create a music video for her song ‘Point and Kill’ where she gave him complete artistic freedom to create whatever the song inspired him to. 

This is where the distinction can be made between sound and image, Point and Kill tells the same story but through two different perspectives, Little Simz’s one and Ebeneza’s one. There is no single author of both, it enables the identification of distinct styles with no particular director. This is why music videos give a lot of cultural visibility and accessibility. West African directed music videos especially have the reputation of being extremely aesthetically pleasing in terms of colors, technology and rhythm they add to the song and this is one of Ebeneza’s stylistic specificities. 

Diane Railton and Paul Watson in Music Video and the Politics of Representation conclude that authorship comes from the person who produces the voice and political message of the video. In our case, with Point and Kill it would be both who have authorship because the music video is essentially a conversation between the sound and image as they both reinforce their political message.

References:

Little Simz – point and kill feat. Obongjayar (official video) (2021) YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvY31eN3gtE (Accessed: 27 November 2023).

Raineri, F. (2023) Discovering mathlete: A short film by the filmmaker Ebeneza Blanche, C41 Magazine. Available at: https://www.c41magazine.com/discovering-mathlete-the-last-short-film-of-the-filmmaker-ebeneza-blanche/ (Accessed: 27 November 2023).

Sanna, A. (2012) Music Video and the politics of representation, by Diane Railton and Paul Watson, Alphaville. Available at: https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue%203/HTML/ReviewSanna.html (Accessed: 27 November 2023).

Steven Shaviro, (2017), ‘Glitch Aesthetics’, Digital Music Video.91/ the pioneer: Ebeneza blanche (no date) Partnership Editions. Available at: https://partnershipeditions.com/collections/91-the-pioneer-ebeneza-blanche (Accessed: 27 November 2023).

By: Octavie Drevon