In NWLA and Fiebre 41’s moody mini-documentary, Chilean rapper Jamez Manuel takes the viewer on a walk through a stormy Santiago. You see a fluttering national flag, then Chile’s church of soccer, the Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos. The stadium housed 40,000 people during the days after the military’s coup over President Salvador Allende in 1973, when it was used as a detention facility. It looms in the background as Manuel raps along to his headphones. Further stops include a shuttered food market, visual artist YISA‘s studio, and then ascension by a wooded road up to a stunning viewpoint of the artist’s hometown.
The clip is about the inevitable pull of fate, or to get more specific, of Manuel’s rise.
The video’s release coincides with that of Manuel’s album Future vs Classic. Fans have been waiting for a minute for this, Manuel’s solo debut after years of hits with his partner Camileazy in rap duo Zonora Point. If you’re in Chile over the next month, you’ll be able to catch the two on the same stage again in a series of gigs that will see them trading their solo songs back-to-back.
Future vs Classic is a 12-track, two-interlude party that shifts repeatedly from reggaeton to trap speed. The record features new single “Quiere Con To’o,” whose sexy beat gets life from Colombian rapper Jiggy Drama’s filthy guest verse. Reggaeton rebel Tomasa del Real, Manuel’s Chilean pana, comes through claws bared on perreo anthem “Perra Satira.” North America gets love in the form of the romantic remix for “Si Dependiera de Mi,” produced by and guest starring Mexico City’s BrunOG and T.Y., respectively. Throughout it all, you get Manuel’s relaxed flow.
These days, the rapper splits his time between Santiago and DF. In Chile, he kills it in the same thriving scene as the KSN Fam and Nación Triizy collectives, who are fellow hip-hop/trap artists. Up north, he was adopted by reigning experimental music collective NAAFI, who released his 2012 mixtape Agua, produced by French DJ Douster.
That the boy keeps moving is not in question. And if you’re listening, he’s telling us in this new mini-doc that his rhymes won’t stay static any more than he will: “The message changes all the time,” Manuel offers in the clip. “Depending on what’s happening, on what I see with my own eyes…We’re all trapped by a singular destiny.”