SEVDALIZA & Emmanuel Adjei present SHAHMARAN [Video]

Dutch-Iranian singer SEVDALIZA draws on hyper-realism and race struggle to create a stunning film for her song ‘Shahmaran’ featured on her debut album, Ison. The three year-long project sees SEVDALIZA teaming up again with Ghanaian director Emmanuel Adjei to visualise one of the most breathtaking music videos of this year.

The Shahmaran film is deeply captivating, following the story of a black man as he pulls the ropes attached to a futuristic yacht, looking for water on a dried-up ocean. The metaphor plays with the history of black people being subjected to an operative system, re-telling the story of American slavery. The video then continues on with futurism and image distortion as the exhausted man finds himself inside an expansive room being tempted by guns, cars and records made out of chrome, drawing on the love of materialism. The final temptation lies in the middle of the room, SEVDALIZA herself hovering above a pool, donned in nothing but crystals with an iconic Arab/Persian inspired Battoulah, made out of crystals across her face. The man approaches SEVDALIZA but falls to his feet and submerges himself in the pool, which ultimately destroys the dreams around him, awakening him to reality.  

This film is truly an art piece, Adjei beautifully visualises his thoughts on the struggles of the modern African American man, being limited around a false sense of freedom with money and materialism being the new alluring chains of enslavement. This is 6 minutes and 50 seconds of meaningful ingenuity with a hint of unnerving Sci-Fi.