A six-figure music video shot in Dubai? Ash Hamman can cross that one off his bucket list.
The Dubai-based, Nigerian-born singer shot the costly clip for his latest single, Wahala (Trouble), over three-and-a-half days “with no sleep at all”, and it’s set to premiere online on September 11.
“I won’t give a specific figure but it was up there in the good six figures, which we managed to pull off, again, thanks to our sponsors and self-funding,” he told tabloid!. “Honestly speaking, I am still in recovery mode.”
The video involved 13 exotic cars, some privately owned and some rented, including G Wagons, Ferraris, Bentleys, Porsches, McLarens and Lamborghini Aventadors. Two speedboats were also featured, as well as three yachts — that is, luxury cruising yachts available for rental in Dubai.
(But all that came at another cost. During the shoot, Hamman lost a diamond ring and a customised Wahala crystal hat, which ended up flying off his head into the sea. And due to the weather, the crew had to pause filming for two hours at one point as their camera got wet during a jacuzzi scene.)
According to Hamman, 80 people worked on the project locally from all over Europe and Africa. They did their best to scout for ideal locations, timings and weather conditions for the opulent shoot.
“You might recognise the blue Meydan bridge, Marina area, Al Khail with Burj Khalifa view and [the] skyline of Dubai — those bright lights look amazing at night,” Hamman said.
“It really was a challenge and there was a lot of drama, emotions and unexpected events but we made it.”
The song is a fusion of Afro-pop and R&B, a slight departure from Hamman’s debut album, which was mostly slow to mid-tempo R&B.
“We decided to focus on elements like fun, water, cars, yachts, luxury lifestyle and happy people,” he said.
But the video wasn’t all cars and boats. In fact, the majority of the funding went into resources rather than what was flaunted on screen.
“A pretty substantial amount was spent on hiring the right people for the job, the locations and permissions... we pretty much shut the Meydan bridge down. This will probably be the first music video to be shot, edited and released in 4K resolution, at least in the Middle East and Africa,” as well as safety, catering, and flying the other artists down, said Hamman.
Don’t expect a follow-up album from the singer just yet. He released his debut record in 2011, but right now, he’s sitting on “hundreds of unreleased tracks” that he’s in no rush to release.
“I am just working on a whole lot of tracks and not thinking album… yet,” he said. “It’s something I’ll put out when it feels right. We’re in the digital age and release strategies have changed now.”
Hamman added that his company, Immaqul’8 Entertainment, will be branching out into new ventures in the future.
“We are going into TV and movies. We are currently also working on a horror movie with my partners,” he said. “A few more music videos are already in the pipeline for myself and other artists, which we will be shooting A to Z in Dubai.”
Keep an eye out on facebook.com/Ash.Hamman and watch the music video for his song Wahala (Trouble) on September 11.
