There was a pleasant surprise for Negril residents on October 7, when Reggae Grammy princess Koffee, dropped the video for her new single West Indies.
This was because, featured prominently in the three minute, breezy, celebratory track, were shots of the Reggae/Dancehall superstar singing and grooving at the top tier of the 127 year old Negril lighthouse, one of the town’s most iconic landmarks.
Another big win for Negril, was that the visuals for the West Indies video, was shot by Negril native and Mannings High School old boy, Storm Saulter, who also wrote and produced the epic 2017 Jamaican, film Sprinter.
West Indies is the first single from Koffee’s highly anticipated début album which is due to be released in 2022 via RCA Records, and follows on her Grammy 2020 Award-winning EP titled Rapture.
The music video for West Indies was shot at various locations on Negril’s West End, including the lighthouse, and at a lush cliffside resort, and was co-directed by Meji Alabi and Koffee herself.
It depicts the Ardenne High School old girl and a throng of friends “partying against a stunning backdrop of the cliffs of West End”, as RCA Records describes it.
So far, the West Indies video has racked up more than 3.7 million views on the video-sharing site YouTube.
The song itself, is produced by Iotosh, another of Jamaica’s rising stars, is a celebration of Koffee‘s West Indian heritage and a personal tribute to the region, known for its music, cricket, culture, world class sprinters, beautiful beaches, romance and delicious cuisine and some of the warmest people in the world.
That the tomboyish Koffee climbed the 103 steps to the top of the formidable Negril Lighthouse which stands 66 feet above ground level – which is enough to give the jitters to even the most adventurous of us – to shoot the video comes as no surprise, as she has always been an adventurous soul.
A little history about the Negril Lighthouse
The Negril lighthouse is located at South Negril Point, the extreme western end of Jamaica in located in the parish of Westmoreland. It is among the first concrete lighthouses to be built in Jamaica.
According to the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, the Negril Lighthouse was built in 1894 by the French Company Bernard & Bernard, on a tank 14 feet deep, which is kept filled with water in order to keep the concrete tower balanced and secured in the event of an earthquake. The Lighthouse is located at latitude 18º 15′ north and longitude 78º 23′ west.
Initially, the lighthouse was operated by a gas lamp. However, in 1956 it was replaced by an acetylene gas lamp, which was used until 1985 when it was replaced by solar energy. The lighthouse has an automatic white light which flashes every two seconds, and is elevated 100 feet above sea level.
The Tower which is built inland, is cylindrical and has an elaborate light enclosed in a metal and glass protector on top of which is a wind-wane, according to the Trust.
The lighthouse is now operated by the Port Authority of Jamaica which has expressed delight about having had the opportunity to facilitate the video shoot for West Indies.
“How amazing is this! The @originalkoffee’s newest single ‘West Indies’ features the #PortAuthorityJa’s Negril Lighthouse. The Port Authority of Jamaica is happy to have been able to facilitate the filming of this music video at the lighthouse,” the agency tweeted noted on a day after the video was released.
The Negril Lighthouse property itself is a grassy expanse of land, which provides a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside and the azure Caribbean Sea. Being on the West end of course, it offers one of the most spectacular sunsets and a bird’s eye view of the coast.
Storm Saulter, Negril’s superstar filmmaker
Hailing from Negril’s west End, Storm Saulter is a filmmaker and visual artist who describes himself as a man on a mission to create universal stories wrapped in the complex social and cultural dynamics of the Caribbean.
Saulter, who appears to be on his way to becoming a film legend, views Negril not only as a place for video shoots, also of the view that his hometown can become the next big thing as a film festival destination.
“I grew up in Negril on this beach running around,” the Los Angeles Film School-trained filmmaker said.
“I grew up here and I know that this is a place that creative people love to come to. So I think it is a great idea… I think it’s a great location,” Storm had aid in an interview during the Skylark Film Festival in 2019 which took place on the Negril Beach, as he noted that the global taste for films outside of Hollywood is growing exponentially.
Storm has directed music videos for Reggae superstars such as Chronixx, Protoje and Popcaan, and in the recent past captured visuals for Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s On The Run 2 world tour.
His photography has been published in Rolling Stone Magazine and his experimental film and photography work has been exhibited at The Brooklyn Museum, The British Museum, the National Gallery of Jamaica, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami. The Negril homeboy is also a commercial director, having worked extensively with athletes like Usain Bolt and brands like Puma and Red Stripe.
Among his other iconic brands with whom he has worked are Virgin Media, the Jamaica Tourist Board, Nestlé, Clarks, Digicel, Sandals Resorts, Rolling Stone and Visa.
Storm’s award-winning debut film Better Mus Come, was critically acclaimed as “signaling a fresh new movement of independent filmmaking throughout the Caribbean”.
In the aftermath of the release of Better Mus Come, Storm co-founded the New Caribbean Cinema collective, which is a consortium of emerging Caribbean auteurs described as being “determined to get their stories to the big screen by any means necessary”.
New Caribbean Cinema used community filmmaking strategies to create a total of seven trailblazing short films, by different directors, including Storm’s brother Nile, “with virtually no budget”. The films were combined into one anthology film titled Ring Di Alarm! after tenor Saw’s iconic Dancehall song, and premiered at the British Film Institute in London.
Storm wrote and directed his second feature film Sprinter, which was released in June 2018.
Sprinter excelled at the 2018 American Black Film Festival copping the “Best Director”, “Best Narrative Feature” and the “Audience” Awards.
The following year, Sprinter, which was executive produced by Jada and Will Smith, went on to win several other major awards including “Best Narrative Feature” at the 2019 Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, as well as the “Audience Award” at the 2019 BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia.
Sprinter was described by the British Film Institute as “Jamaica’s energetic, emotional, and endearing return to the world cinema stage”, while the Los Angeles Times’ Glen Whipp, hailed Storm as having a “poet’s eye for detail, capturing the beauty of his native country, even in its most extreme poverty”.
