We Never Imagined life in the 1960s could be this Beautiful

A pop career does not only requires a steady stream of catchy music, but a whole lot of visuals to go with it.

It works best if you can create something truly original, sure, but often pop music videos are a big old mashup of diverse images drawing on everything from modern art, fashion photography, history, cinema, and street culture.

Even then, it’s not guaranteed that the result will truly strike people and get them talking. 

A carefully deployed movie-like recreation, though, is almost certainly sure to grab people’s attention (nostalgia sells), and pretty much everyone’s done it at this point. 

As most of us seem to know by now, Jah Prayzah has been creating African classic film-esque and rom-com-ish videos, from the mediocre visuals of Sungano to the par excellence Dzamutsana oculars. 

Apparently, the star continues to ascend with every release, despite a few missteps. 

Well, it’s Valentine’s week and the Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe-bred virtuoso is back with another eye scorcher from his recent album Chitubu, for the world pleasure. 

The new video, Kunerima, shot and directed by Vusa Blaqs stars the alluring and coquettish media personality Samantha “MisRed” Musa.

Lucky for us, at least after those cosy, intimate and cheek-to-cheek pictures of the two we won’t be running around telling that they are an item.

In the video the tantalising MisRed plays the role of Jah Prayzah’s love interest, a role she delivers immaculately.

Set in perhaps in the 1960s epoch, the creative pair profiles in vintage outfits and they look stunning in them, well enough to make all the pop stars of that era and their raunchy video vixen smirk.

With Misred playing all difficult to get despite Jah Prayzah’s relentless sincere proposals, Kunerima is the mushy definition of a love song that becomes all the more powerful for it.

It has all the trappings of a by-the-numbers hopeless romantic ballad: the swooning, arpeggiated opening, a crescendo upbeat accompaniment, and lyrics whose blatant emotional manipulation ought to fall right apart under scrutiny.

“Dzinde randasima ndicharidiridzira richatumbukira kuvariye (hope we get it right)/sango remasango tichayambuka dziva tichitevera shiri dziye”

There’s real, undeniable hunger in JP’s luminous and robust vocal, the push and pull of the registers is subtler than expected, and the words reveal layers where true fidelity fights to overcome lingering despair.

For all that could be said, Kunerima is lullaby-simple in its structure. JP has again managed to woo us over with his creative input, echoing the way that when love feels right, it’s somewhere between a no-brainer and a miracle. 

If there’s anyone out there whose heart doesn’t melt just a little when they watch this video, we’ll eat our hat. 

The world seems to agree: the song has 180k and counting views on YouTube by the time of this publication. 

By the way, we never imagined the 1960s this beautiful. Thanks to Jah, Misred and whoever was behind this video for the visual flashback. Where does that leave us as, time-watchers? That’s a case for another day. 

Watch the video below and share with us what you think about it.