“Taken“ is a rumination on love lost before it could get started. Meeting someone you’re interested in is hard enough, but giving up what could have been, when that someone is taken, is heartbreak all its own.
Enter Philly’s own Ivy Sole, a 25-year old rapper-singer who joins forces with Ghanaian crooner B4Bonah for a jam, off her full-length debut OVERGROWN (Les Fleurs Records), that balances desire and distance with ease. With Accra, Tema & Cape Coast as the backdrop, the video shows Ivy contemplating a different love and loss, visiting the castle where her ancestors were likely held prior to their long journey to America.
Ivy Sole states:
“I wanted to visit West Africa as a pilgrimage of sorts. I think many Black Americans and Black Caribbean folks have a yearning to go to where our families started, but we don’t have a specific place to return to because that history was stolen.”
“I consider myself blessed to have loved ones who have ties and are willing to share their homes with me; my manager (who produced the beat and the video) made it a priority to help me get to Ghana, collaborate with Bonah and accomplish the goal of creating more music and this video while we were there.”
“B4Bonah is one of my favorite Afrobeat artists and being able to shoot this video in Tema and Cape Coast made the trip extra special. It was heavy to be standing in a place where such terror took place, but I think my ancestors would be proud of my path back and my path forward.”
The video then acts as twofold contemplation on being “Taken,” paying homage to the love that sustained enslaved Africans for an unwanted, torturous voyage across the Atlantic, and the love that sustains and eludes their descendants now.
The video was directed by Dave Duncan, one of OkayAfrica’s highlighted talents and produced by Ivy’s manager Ethan Boye-Doe, whose family has roots in Ghana. Ivy is wearing two cloaks courtesy of Threaded Tribes and jewelry & eyewear made possible by De Forty Five, both based in Ghana.
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