“…French-Chilean MC Ana Tijoux takes her song “Volver” to new heights on this video from director B+–specifically, above the clouds over Medellin, Colombia (no Escobar jokes please). Which seems to be the natural habitat for her Bahamadia-esque flow on this track; more whispered torch song than rap in the conventional sense. Making the video was clearly a bit of a transcendent moment for Ana as well, and for this Okayplayer world premiere of the video, she shared her memories of the experience, which all came together while she was in Colombia to work with Quantic. (“Volver” is from Ana’s current LP La Bala–purchase it on iTunes now: http://bit.ly/SIyztL).”
“I became familiar with the work of B+ after seeing some of the documentaries produced by Mochilla about Ma Dukes, Mulatu, and Verocai. To be completely honest, I was immediately and profoundly impacted by their work. Soon I somehow became friends with B+ and now to do a project with him … im very thankful for this.
I was in Medellin thanks to an invitation by DJ Quantic, to take part in his recordings of Ondatropica in the historic Disco Fuentes Studios. Three days full of tremendous experiences not only at this iconic place, but also with the number of extraordinary musicians that I was able to meet and collaborate with. And of course my curiosity for the city itself, I had never been before and I was lucky to get a little chance to explore and start to understand its cultural, musical, and historical impacts on Colombia and the world.
On my last morning there, B+ and I woke up extremely early with the idea to film what was his favorite song from my new album. We didn’t really know what we were going to do, we just walked through the streets and he took the camera and filmed. We had been invited by some community organizers in Comuna 13 to get to know their barrio and a few things outside of the usual tourist routes, and we took the metro to its end to see what was going on.
There, amongst the beautiful people, the organization doing its terrific work, and the reality of life in the barrios of Colombia, we took to the skies with our guide on the MetroCable to see the entirety of this isolated neighborhood. We had been looking for something simple to film, and here we had it, the absolute beauty of the views over the hills that make up Medellin, with all of the humanity of Comuna 13 below.
Volver is a song that is a bit outside of the rest of the album. The music was made by my collaborator Andres Celis, and the idea was to just be open to exploring and adding different kinds of music that inspires both of us, without limits.”
- Ana Tijoux
Directed by: B+ / Edited by: Luke Lynch
