Inspired by Denis Villenueve’s cinematic DUNE movie, British filmmaker Lewis Andrews created a burnt orange hued visual cinescape world filled with speckled planets and an elongated monolith-shaped space ship piercing through a hazy desert skyline.

Drill artist Richard Akam starts the opening shot. Slowly walking with intention, draped in a rusty grey folk-ish futuristic floor length hooded jacket, making his appearance look tribal; almost like a warrior in Blade Runner. Perhaps a subtle directorial nod to the show Lewis was working on at the time.

The cracked earth looks like Mars. The air looks tense and hot. Akam kicks up dust with his moon-like heavy boots. The scene is expansive and the rocky dunes (so to speak), look dry and weathered. How a video can make the air tense and stifling is beyond me but it works.

The scene welcomes an eerie duduk flute sound, repeating melodically under a base drum beat. Richard starts rapping. The melding of Arabic flute, a house baseline, and grime rap gives the genre a stylish kick in the teeth. Grit with flute. Drum with grime. An urban British rap artist with futuristic space visuals. 

Morning turns into evening and two planets eclipse whilst far off sparking stars light up the triangular space ship cutting through the sky. Evening brings out a baby sand worm, wriggling almost naively upwards out of a basket. The scene is bizarre and beautiful.

Lewis Andrews