There's been growing interest in animation in East Africa, with more and more ads and music videos containing bits of animated art, but so far we had not seen an artist's video in stop motion. The process of starting and stopping the camera, then moving the subject (a doll or another object) a few millimeters to produce the next frame is quite labour intensive.
Bring in 'Rain on my lips', the new video by Burundi born emcee/poet Pepe Haze and singer Steph McKee. Pepe Haze has become a bit of a celebrity in Kenya recently through his acting in the MTV Shuga tv series about the dangerous lifestyles of urban youth in Nairobi, but he's been very active on the Nairobi music & poetry scene in the past few years.
The idea for the video, produced by Pepe's friend, communication student Loi Awat of SFTV, came about when electricity in Loi's hood got cut off one night, and she ended up becoming bored, playing around with dolls and recording a short animated Youtube video. When Pepe Haze saw the video he asked her to do a full music video using the same stop motion technique. Watch the result below - Barbie doll alert!
