Music is not meant to exist only as isolated in headphones; it wants to be seen too.
Written by Hlengiwe Mkwayi
We experience music it as it spills into streets, in full and falling apart taxis, warm beach dates, grandmother’s living room, corner stores, hair salons with the Congolese braider, backyard gatherings at your sister’s, and lonely late-night study or work sessions. The environment becomes an important part in memory making; the walls, the noise, the people, and the movement all shape how music is received.
It’s perhaps from this understanding that music videos find their significance. If the worlds we exist in shape how we receive music, then music videos take it a step further by constructing the visual environments to hold the song. We have, however, seen a clear shift in the industry through the rise of the range of streaming platforms and short-form content. This has changed how audiences discover and engage with music. One cannot count the number of songs that they know that have become successful without ever seeing the official videos, heck even hearing the full songs themselves.
With music videos no longer being the “main event” as it was in the MTV era, I believe that today they function less as a promotional tool. These documents are now a brand-building device that defines how an artist is seen and remembered, a creative expression where artists explore narrative, identity, and visual language and lastly and one could argue most importantly, a cultural artefact that captures the style, politics, and aesthetics of a moment we live in.
This article therefore explores music videos that I feel are doing just that.
I WANT IT ALL
As both a playground and a proving ground, there’s also a format evolution happening when approaching visual production. The “official music video” now exists alongside a range of visual offerings such as lyric videos, vertical clips, performance cuts, and social-first visuals. What’s built are entire visual ecosystems around a song rather than relying on a single video output.
One such artist whose release strategy saw clarity and care is LUUKHANYO. His rollout around his debut album, LUCKY UU, was a steady, intentional build and did not rely on a single defining moment. The sense of anticipation crafted over time through cinematic snippets, carefully released singles, and visually distinct yet connected music videos that slowly crafted his visual narrative to better understand his world perspective in relation to the music he creates.
SHHH, DON’T OVERTHINK IT
When one is an emerging musician, it’s easy to feel intimidated by the scale of music video productions today when imagining the budgets, polished imagery, and “cinematic” languages that can make the process feel out of reach. But the truth is, music videos have never belonged to scale alone but have proved that they are led by ideas.
There are approaches one can take that prioritise intention over excess. A single location, a strong performance, and a clear visual code can carry just as much weight as an elaborate set. Sometimes the restraint in choosing one feeling, one gesture, one perspective, and committing to it fully opens ground for a more deliberate looseness where the limitation becomes the language.
The Leaders Of The Wav brilliantly approach performance videos. Their first two episodes feature Justin99 and Brotherkupa in street performances grounded in real-life exterior spaces. With a single mic hanging overhead and the incorporation of an engaged and onlooking crowd, the video pieces are driven by the artist’s energy and how they occupy the space, as well as how the camera moves and holds and moment.
Instead of over-directing or over-styling, the visuals lean into immediacy from lived-in components . I’ve been a part of many productions where it’s been proven that with or without the presence of money to produce, a music video is only as great as its concept and at its core, it isn’t about perfection but how that idea is translated.
TO TV, OR NOT TO TV, THAT IS THE QUESTION
Music videos were once tied to the television. I would return home from a long day of wearing a school jersey and blazer (during the peak of summer) to surf through Channel O, MTV Base and TRACE, watching music videos back-to-back. There were even some moments where one had to be there at a certain time, watching the right channel, waiting for a moment where their favourite music might play; a scheduled, anticipated, collectively experienced.
Today, that urgency is no more.With the screens that have shrunk and the access expanded, we engage and watch on phones, laptops; in fragments and in passing. And yet, despite this shift, the essence of the music video remains where it still asks us to pause, to look, to feel. From full-scale production to a stripped-back performance, the intention is the same and that is to give the music a visual memory.
So the key take away is not quite where we watch, but how we engage. Our attention is the real currency here. Do not scroll past and let things disappear back into the feed. Return to things, sit with them, and allow yourself to feel and decode what you’re visually experiencing.
I leave you with a playlist of music visuals that I’ve returned to over and over; click here to share into this experience. Should we host a watch party next time?