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Live Review: Cherrie 'Tabanja' (Official Video)

4 September 2015 | 2:47 pm | Katie Rowley

CHERRIE HERSI, Somalian-born, Finnish-raised and now Swedish based, has released the video for her track, ‘Tabanja’.

Think of Stockholm and you think of an eco-minded green city, cycle paths galore, citizens with impeccable dress sense and a carbon footprint that other cities can only dream of. What you might not think of, however, is a skanky dub beat with politically conscious visuals from a Somalian singer.

CHERRIE HERSI, Somalian-born, Finnish-raised and now Swedish based, has released the video for her track, ‘Tabanja’. Shot in black and white, we see torn up streets, drugs being bagged up for sale, CCTV cameras and graffiti on the side of the concrete estate declaring ‘you ain’t local’. Hersi has put much of herself into the song and video, which presumably stems from her own experiences of racism and discrimination whilst growing up in Finland. The clip for the song was shot in the Rinkeby neighbourhood of Stockholm where Cherrie currently lives, and features appearances from many of her mates.

Tabanja is slang for a pistol or gun, a reference that becomes clearer. We see white kids and black kids, tattooed kids, kids in caps, kids with their shirts off, kids on bikes doing wheelies, and Cherrie herself appears towards the end with her arms protectively grasped around a young street kid. As she lets go of the child, he falls to the ground, followed by all the other kids around him – shot by invisible bullets, they litter the concrete square like toppled dominoes. It becomes apparent that the blood we’d seen trickling down the sides of the walls in previous scenes is the blood of the murdered kids. It’s quite chilling when coupled with Hersi’s distant vocals.

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The song carries on from Hersi’s debut track, aptly titled ‘Intro’, which again featured her singing in Swedish against dark, moving, pattering drums – her harrowing vocals swam amidst a liquid dub synth sample. Again, the bass-heavy production and dub step beats on 'Tabanja' tee up her politically charged lyricism and message. Admittedly dubstep is a genre that has faded out of the limelight somewhat in recent years, but this track serves as a reminder that the style still has much to say in line with the social consciousness and politicised nature of traditional dub and reggae.

Words by Katie Rowley

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