Video Review: Biibi Ba By Sarkodie feat. All Stars

After featuring several budding rap talents in Ghana on his ‘Trumpet’ hit song, Sarkodie is out again with a sequel.

The recently released video features a whole new army of gifted rappers, each unique in his approach to spitting bars, giving the track a rare blend of the finest rap styles out there.

The names that made this happen include Tulenkey, Frequency, Kofi Mole, Toyboi, Yeyo, Amerado, 2fyngers, OB Kay and CJ Biggerman.

The scene opens with Sarkodie standing at the center of what seems to be a state of pandemonium generated by different people from all walks of life spanning from schoolchildren, youths and the aged, in a squabble for some free flying dollar bills.

It’s a perfect opener for a song themed on the essence of accruing wealth and enough money to be able to face the unknown and yet impending future, hence the title, ‘Biibi Ba’.

Sarkodie turns the tables by being a singing a verse and the congregational chorus that drives home the very foundation upon which the individual lyrics from each rapper is built on.

He must be duly acknowledged for his dedication and relentless attempt to push the upcoming acts into the limelight. 

The real deal begins with some heavy bars from Lyrical Joe in a cult-like company of guys standing on a dirty white staircase wearing ghost-like white apparels with black strokes in them on top of a white headgear covering their faces.

It paints a picture of the mysteries surrounding the grind in making money, whether legally or illegally.

Tulenkey delivers another side of his versatility as he swaps between Twi and Pidgin rap lines. He is staged in a broken-down old Mercedes Benz model being attended to by car mechanics.

It depicts the hustle and eagerness to gain wealth and a better standard of living, complimenting the message behind his rap.

The thrill intensifies with the apt delivery and background setting of each act from the likes of Frequency whose costume, poetic and allusive rap about money, compliments his name. Kofi Mole also turns up the heat with his water baptism/deliverance session ironic to the contents of his rap.

I must say that each act displayed a fair share of creativity, drama and punchlines, but my personal favorite is Toyboi’s delivery of multi-lingual bars coupled with an exquisite act of a bound cowboy victim struggling to break free in a red Indian open field territory and being used as bait for a shooting arrow game.

Yeyo grabs the attention of the cameras with his straight to the point rap style that suggests a more aggressive means to making wealth despite its consequences and it’s complemented by a rather ritualistic scene of a shrine, fetish priests and incense.

You could call him the serial killer or undertaker of the video but Amerado is not to take the blame alone as the supposed dead body wrapped up and ready to be buried is a discreet build up from an unrepentant Kofi Mole who at the verge of being delivered, is still bent on making money by all means possible.

Transitioning to Yeyo who is now fully convinced that illegal sources of money could be the answer to his money hunt right down to an Amerado who probably has that dead body as the human sacrifice to seal the deal.

2Fyngers eases off the hustle with a much menial but dignifying scene of young guys working at a local electronic waste dumping site in a bid to recycle metal scraps. His wordings are much more positive and encouraging to keep up the hustle in order to earn a living.

O’BKay, reinforces his upgrade by wheeling in as a cripple and standing up out of his wheelchair halfway into his delivery as a metaphor to depict his experience and maturity in his art over the years.

The setting seems to be a corridor of a scientific institution littered with notes written on sheets of papers in relation to the first line of his rap which cites a ‘Center for Scientific Research into Money Making’.

The rap line cuts off with CJ Biggerman spotted in a graveyard holding several varieties of foreign dogs while spewing bars and punches aggressively. He is seen walking towards a dark alley holding two dog chains cuffed around the necks of two foreign breeds.

The audiovisual by Babs Direction is on point, artistic, creative, tailor-made and it’s by far a clear depiction of the individual lyrics of each act bundled to present a solid concept for the theme.

One concern though is the fresh and unstained costumes of some acts like Amerado, who is supposed to be playing the role of an undertaker with a shovel set to dig a grave.

The sweat was a good effect but his costume seemed rather clean for a messy character. Tulenkey’s car also looked too polished up and freshly painted to be having breakdowns. A ricketier looking car would have been suitable to depict the need to make money and upgrade into a more luxurious car.

The very opening scene too had its faults. A closer look at the characters in a state of pandemonium, and you would see one guy holding a coloured smoke stick trying to evade the cameras and another lady and guy smiling directly into the camera behind Sarkodie.

Yeyo’s setup of fetish priests without their idols is highly questionable but something just doesn’t seem to click with CJ Biggerman’s cemetery scene. I get the correlation between his aggressive style and the wild dogs but the cemetery just isn’t a thing for me.

All in all, it’s a great production and an example of what the Ghanaian industry needs to rub shoulders with global standards.