Watch BENIN CITY’s video for hypnotic new single “All Smoke, No Fire”

The London-based three-piece BENIN CITY are back with a new single and video, “All Smoke, No Fire”, and with the announcement of their new album “Last Night”.

Benin City is the trio comprised of vocalist and poet Joshua Idehen, vocalist Shanaz Dorsett and multi-instrumentalist Tom Leapers. On their new single and video “All Smoke, No Fire”, the collective wants to make a statement. For a year now, London has known a massive clubs, pubs, bars and social spaces shutdowns. Indeed, in 2015, 50% of those spaces were closed, preventing a lot of artists from playing, promoting their music, and living from their art. Their new Shaun James Grant-directed video, as well as the track itself, is a response to that phenomenon.

About the video, Benin City’s Joshua Idehen detailed:

We met up with Shaun Grant; we’d loved his work with Lemonade Money and Mikey Lightfoot. We ranted over pints about Passing Cloud’s demise and gentrification in general, the changes in our respective neighbourhoods and our helplessness. In him we found a twin creative spirit who shared our anger and visual ideas and knew how to present them on camera. It was shot on a single night. We asked our friends – poets, musicians, journalists – to meet us at various times, in front of closed clubs, Brixton Arches and libraries. There were too many. The last voice we got, Ben, was just someone who we’d met whilst filming in front of Carnegie Library. He’d organised a squat party to delay its closing down and he wanted to say something.

Benin City‘s “All Smoke, No Fire” will be featured on their sophomore LP “Last Night” due to be released on via Moshi Moshi Records.

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