Jr Gong teams with Kassa for latest video
DAMIAN ‘JR GONG’ Marley and Ras Kassa have collaborated once again for his latest video, Roar For A Cause.
The last of three days of shooting ended in an abandoned building on Princess Street. The downtown Kingston setting was deliberate, portraying Jr Gong as a watcher, concerned for the lack of watchfulness over inner-city communities.
In 2005, Ras Kassa and Jr Gong worked on the music video for the breakout single, Welcome to Jamrock. Ras Kassa expects that with the pending release of the video will come a re-energised appreciation for artistry in music-video production, as he believes was evident in Welcome to Jamrock.
“It’s a song that kinda speak to the streets,” Jr Gong told The Gleaner. Roar For A Cause is a song that communicates the necessity of the watchful and concerned eye, and the video is expected to artistically reflect that notion. Certain kind of discipline weh we know, that people who are community leaders, or so-called ‘dons’, dem would really uphold. Especially when I was a yute, there were certain principles that these people would uphold in their communities. This is to reassure them of those principles, or remind them of those principles,” he added.
WATCHFUL GAZE
During one of the scenes, Jr Gong is placed by a window, casting a watchful gaze over the street three floors below.
“Basically, this is a picture of life in Kingston, and based on what Kassa wrote, it applies
directly to Roar For A Cause,” Knoko Chapple, assistant director on set, told The Gleaner.
“Really, what he’s talking about [is] the disenfranchised. He’s talking about mistakes people make and wrongs that need to be made right, and tries to play on that imagery. It’s a graphic structure on which he gets on to the top of it, as a way for him to peer over the city, and keep an eyeball on everything that’s going on in the city, like the great Batman,” Chapple continued.