Scribe “Dreaming”

At the 2013 Silver Scrolls awards, Scribe surprised a lot of people by singing in his and Mark Vanilau’s performance of the Dave Dobbyn song “It Dawned on Me”. But here’s Scribe singing on a track 10 years earlier. According to the Crusader album retrospective on Grindin, Scribe originally wrote the chorus for Che Fu to sing, but P-Money convinced Scribe to sing it himself – and it works.

“Dreaming” is a testament to Scribe’s childhood, his hard work at becoming an MC, and his dreams for the future. And it includes a simple, sung chorus – a hint at his other talents.

Directed by frequent collaborator Chris Graham, the video keeps things simple and uses a lot of old photos to illustrate Scribe’s early years. The first 20 seconds of the video is timelapse footage of clouds – a deliberate choice by Graham to avoid obvious hip hop iconography. Then we step inside Scribe’s photo album – a cool-dude little boy, a surly teen, a budding MC.

We also catch up with present-day Scribe hunched over a notebook, writing down his lyrics. This isn’t a fancy Moleskine – it’s a cheap-arse, dog-eared notebook, with lyrics written in all available spaces.

He’s also rapping in a recording studio and freestyling on the street with his friends – all signs of a successful young MC, someone who turned those notebooks full of lyrics into songs.

Near the end of the video we get a recap of his previous music videos, including some behind-the-scenes bits from the Chris Graham-directed ones. It’s a nice touch, especially as his videography contains some of the best New Zealand music videos.

Best bit: Scribe playing with the dog on the “Not Many” video set.

Other good thing: YouTube commenter Cruzin Streets says, “For whatever reason this film clip makes me feel better when i’m down.”

Director: Chris Graham
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a homecoming.

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