Say Say Poésie: Épilogue
Producer, writer & director: Amath Mbaye
A rapper, an album, and a camera that didn’t know yet it was filming the end of an era.
- Type
- Documentary
- Released
- 2024
- My role
- Producer, writer & director
A 32-minute documentary on the making of Say Say Poésie, Omzo Dollar’s album. I produced, wrote and directed it.
Omzo
Omzo Dollar is one of the most gifted rappers in Senegal, and one of the most singular: a way of writing, of flowing, of thinking about rap that is his alone. I had been a fan for a long time.
A controller in hand
The first time I meet him, at his place, he’s playing PlayStation. No big speech. I had filmed a lot of concerts, but I dreamed of something else: following an artist through a whole creative cycle, from the first idea to the stage.
What I was filming was no longer a making-of. It was an epilogue.
Showing up
So I asked him one thing: let me know every time you go to the studio. He did, and I came. Over time, the camera disappeared and the process appeared: how he writes, how he doubts, how he builds a track with his beatmakers and producers.
The last album
Midway through filming, one line in a song stops me: this is his last album. What I was filming was no longer a making-of. It was an epilogue.
The edit was long and hard: too much footage, too many moments worth keeping. In the end, 32 minutes that helped a lot of people hear the album differently.
What I took from it
- Trust is built by showing up, again and again, until the camera disappears.
- The hardest part of a documentary is what you leave out.
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