Named after the great artist Leonardo da Vinci with an intelligent play on words, soulful Sudanese rapper Dafencii releases a music video for ‘KING ALHALABA’ after an initial release of the audio version a little bit over two months ago.
The artist first garnered attention with his debut release of ‘Rksha’, establishing his sound and laying the foundations for his tone and vocal direction. This was an impressive start to the artist’s career, with the video amassing over 200,000 views to date since its release in 2021. Since then, he’s been frequently collaborating with Palestinian producer Khayyat, sharing a different side to his artistry with each release, flaunting both lyrical wit and unique musical direction.
Dafencii takes this chance to establish his grounds within the rap scene, claiming himself as ‘KING ALHALABA’, translated loosely to ‘King of Ring’. The bars describe Dafencii’s confidence in his abilities and skills, throwing subtle shade to certain members in the scene, and proclaiming his presence within the rap community. Dafencii’s vocals have a certain ring to it that makes him sound unique and recognizable in his own right.
Khayyat offers a minimalistic trap beat, with nearly drums and bass only, with simple lead keys playing the second half of the single to create movement and difference between the different sections of the track.
The video is impressive for its clever editing, clean cinematography, and last but not least, its high-quality. Directed and shot by Ibraheem Bin Taleb, the video depicts Dafencii rapping in various iconic locations in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. With the empty streets and bland colours (the result of Haneen Majdi’s colour grading talents), with Dafencii being the focal point, the video is a visual reflection of the song’s concept – that the rapper is king of the block.
The video sees Dafencii across various locations that follow a similar theme and color palette across the video. Mid-way through the video, the rapper is shown portraying two characters that seem to be talking to each other; one that looks like a normal 9-5 employee while the other reps a hoodie and sunglasses, which might signify the rapper’s artistic identity. The simplicity of the video is finely tuned with the use of engaging edits, such as cloning the artist or animating a poster of the artist on the wall.
24Fever Productions certainly demonstrated that a video’s appeal is found in its aesthetics, cinematography, and editing, rather than the equipment used. Moreover, the track is excellent proof, yet again, that Sudanese rap is where it’s at.
Watch the full video below.
