Faith Mussa ventures into animated videos
Musician Faith Mussa ventured into animated video production for children as part of expanding his audience.
Speaking in an interview on Wednesday, Mussa said he has started his new venture with animation of Mdidi, one of his popular songs.
“I have a feeling that after I released Mdidi, I captured the attention of a new audience in children. So, I decided to do something that no musician has done in Malawi. And that’s releasing animated videos,” he said.
Mdidi animated video will be premiered next month at Crossroads Hotel in Lilongwe on a date to be announced in the near future.
However, Mdidi will not be the first animated video to be released by a Malawian artist. Youthful hip hop artist-cum-event manager Excess also released an animated video of his Mesho hit, which enjoyed positive response early this year.
A clip of the seven-minute hilarious Mdidi, which The Nation has sampled, is an underlying story that features funny characters such as dancers (including a depiction of Mussa) and a traffic policer officer (Constable Simwaka). It has been produced by Lilongwe-based creative director Justice Mkumba of Studio M-Jay, who is also the creator of the popular Bengo, the hilarious animated cartoon. Voices have been done by Dixon Banda.
Mussa said it has taken him a long time to work on the animated video.
“I have worked with several people who either failed to stand the pressure, or just vanished with my money. But finally, I met Justice Mkumba and we created this masterpiece. And I am loving what I am seeing,” Mussa said.
However, the Desperate hit maker said the comical animated Mdidi video remix targets both audiences.
“I didn’t want it to be for kids only so I added adult characters and humour just for the fun of it,” he said.
Mkumba said he was excited to work on Mdidi project, which he described as a creative gift to Malawians.
He fired warning shots, saying Malawians should expect the best from him and Mussa as far as creative video animations are concerned.
Video animation is the process of making the illusion of motion and the illusion of change by way of a rapid display of a sequence of images that plainly differ from each other. It is a breakaway from the traditional video production. In local sense, animated videos can easily be identified by the designing and use of cartoon-like characters in a music video production. n
