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Music

The New Rashid Ajami Video Navigates the Troubled Ethics of Voyeurism and Surveillance

An anti-hero with a videocamera sets the scene in the London producer's dark new video.

Having already established himself with releases on labels like Cajual Records and Anjunadeep, London-based producer Rashid Ajami is pushing his career forward this fall with a new EP out this past Friday, for the Danish label Noir Music. Today, we're streaming the music video for its titular track, "Night Prayer" featuring JAW, a moody bit of vocal house held right in the crosshairs between haunted sparseness and emotive decadence.

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The video is similarly caught in an unresolved tension. It begins by following an antihero, a voyeuristic male with a videocamera who records a woman getting undressed through her window, a drug deal, and more. The script gets flipped, though, when someone turns their camera on him without his realizing and uploads the results to YouTube, where the documentation inspires lots of angry commenters, and some sympathetic ones. Before long, the video ends without taking a clear moral stance—instead, it lets the dark reality of a culture where everyone can practice surveillance on everyone else sink in.

Alexander says "please" and "thanks" for following him on Twitter.

Night Prayer is out now, get it here

Rashid Ajami is on SoundCloud // Facebook // Twitter

CREDITS

PRODUCTION COMPANY

BlackBox Creative & Rabbit Hole

DIRECTOR/CINEMATOGRAPHER

Adam Lyons

PRODUCERS

Francesca Hotchin, Tim Dee

FIRST ASSISTANT CAMERA

Francesca Hotchin

KEY GRIP

Leigh Glynn Finnegan

LEAD ACTOR 'PERVERT'

Dean Smith