The Music Video

Long story short, I have a friend who works at a radio station where she met a Ghanaian guy who has connections to the relatively famous Ghanaian hiplife group called 4×4. I had heard of these connections through the grapevine but didn’t think too much about it until my friend asked me, “Hey, so do you want to be in a music video?”

To which I responded soundly, “Hell yes, I want to be in a music video!”

However, even after committing myself to this video shoot, I didn’t truly think that it would ever happen. In Ghana, I’ve found it’s not the best idea to get too wrapped up in an idea. For example, I was thoroughly committed to finding an intensive internship at a local broadcast station until I discovered that the stations were all impossible to contact, had recently switched numbers, or were really good at making promises to call me back that they would never follow through with. With that said, I tend to make plans more loosely here than I would back in the States. If plans fall through in the States, I’m livid. If plans fall through in Ghana, I just shrug my shoulders and move on with my life.

When my friend called me one afternoon recently after I had agreed to do the video to say that we would be meeting the director that afternoon, things became a tad more real. The director and a group of other Ghanaians came to campus to meet us, discuss the basics of the video, to assure us that we would not be parading around with our privates hanging out, and to discuss when shooting would begin. When asked what exactly we would be doing in the video, the director responded, “All you have to do is look as beautiful as you already do.”

Let me just state, at the time of the meeting, I had not washed my hair in over two days. I wasn’t wearing a spot of make-up, I was sporting some rather unflattering clothes, and I was sweating profusely from the 20-minute walk to the meeting spot from my dorms. My hair was piled in a ratty ball that resembled the bun it was meant to be. Somehow, I thought, I think I’ll be able to manage to match my current abundance of beauty.

After our short meeting, I gave an awkward wave to the director and the random guys with him and ran off to the solace of my dorm room’s ceiling fan. I didn’t find out until after the meeting that the people accompanying the director were the members of 4×4 themselves.

“I can’t believe the band showed up! They’re, like, famous here,” a friend gushed later.
“Really?” I asked. “I mean…oh, right.”

Shooting began on the Monday after our return from the Cape Coast festival. The only details I knew were that the song was called “Fresh One,” we were to bring “clubbing” clothes (preferably black to contrast the white set), and that we would be picked up outside our dorm in the evening.

We were taken to the director’s house where the set was all ready to go. We watched a few of the director’s previous videos to understand his filming style, picked out our outfits from what we’d brought, met the make-up artist, and then proceeded to make ourselves as “beautiful” as we were upon our first meeting with the band. As predicted, it wasn’t hard to rival my former state.

We were reintroduced to the group and, this time, I actually understood who I was meeting. Their names are Fresh Prince, Captain Planet, and –get this—Abortion. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, one of the group members’ names is Abortion. Apparently, he chose the name because he wants to “abort” the problems in the world. I don’t really get it, but whatever. He’s famous, so who am I to question him?

A group of 3 girls were chosen for the first scene in which they stood around a lip-synching Fresh Prince and were told to look like they “wanted to take a bit out of him.” While those 3 girls were trying to muster up some hunger for their designated rapper, we had the finishing touches done on our make-up (mine had been smudged by some chips and soda they had brought us as a snack. I’m a sucker for free food, Mac lipgloss or not). After my make-up had been done, I checked out a nearby mirror to discover that I looked like I’d gotten a bad fake tan in a cheap Hollywood salon. Apparently the high-powered lights were going to take the color out of my face, which required me to be painted in a tone reminiscent of Patrick Schwayze (may he rest in tan peace).

Finally, it was my turn to be on set. Our scene involved us doing various actions around Abortion, who was seated on a small black, white, and red cushioned chair. Our first job was to walk in circles around him while he lip-synched. We were required to wear heels on set and I was trying really hard not to wipe out as my borrowed black heels kept catching on the green carpeting. To make matters worse, the fan that was supposed to work my hair up into a sexy wind-blown do kept blowing my hair directly into my eyes and my lipgloss (causing me to pull it out of said lipgloss very un-sexily). Next we were to rotate in the same circle, stopping to do poses. I really had no idea what to do and probably resembled a toddler in her mother’s heels trying to imitate the Victoria Secret Fashion Show. Finally, after a great deal of rotation, we were asked to stand stationary in specific spots. One girl was to the side, leaning over Abortion in adoration. Another was on the other side, dancing down to the ground. I was smack dab in the back-center, leaning over the chair. I was told to sort of move to the music a bit, while looking at Abortion and at the camera. I discovered that my ability to stare into a camera for long periods of time while occasionally glancing down a wildly gesticulating Ghanaian is borderline genius.

Everything was going great (“We’re killin’ it, we’re KILLIN’ it,” shouted Abortion more than once after the cameras stopped rolling) and we were just about to wrap up our scene when, suddenly…the power died. Off went the fan, off went the lights, off went everything. We sat outside on the patio and got eaten alive my mosquitoes for about an hour before the situation was deemed hopeless.

The shoot was called off and we were set to get the cameras rolling the next day. However, when the next day came and we had all been waiting to get picked up for over an hour, it was discovered that the director had jetted off to Germany without warning. The shoot was rescheduled yet again to this coming Saturday, which, of course, is the day of my mandatory Art History field trip. But, honestly, it’s ok. I think I got my fill of fame. I just can’t wait to see how silly I looked once the video is up on YouTube.