FRATPACKER WORLD.

As people of colour and culture “our people” is a common phrase used in the community. A term used to describe the nuance of our heritage, culture, mindsets, behaviours and traits. In the beginning the white people used it to group us a group of people they could never want to interact with or understand, and we used to that term to create an understanding and community within ourselves.

Now even in the culture of “our people” we have OUR PEOPLE, as in the people we talk to, confide in and seek counsel from. We meet our people through circumstances that bond us together on a deeper emotional, mental and spiritual level. Whether it be from sharing small details like your day or the cashier who double swiped your packet of crisps or the extremes of congratulations on the new car to condolences for the loss of your loved ones. These experiences help s find and form Our People.

As a man, you realise you have your people but as you grow older you realise the structures and mindsets that we’ve been raised under and how it  depreciates the value of relying our people and their worth, so usually men don’t talk to or confide in their people but rather try shoulder it all alone and in June, the month of Men’s Mental Health Awareness, NLite have decided to shine more light on this with their new single ‘Our People’ and with a music video that they shot in collaboration with Camagu TV.

On Thursday 12 June 2025, NLite & Camagu Productions hosted a screening for the music video of ‘Our People’ at Artistry in Sandton. Before we get into the visuals of the song, I want to get into the sonics of it.

Firstly, NLite is a trio; based and founded in Johannesburg, South Africa, consisting of Dave Moyo aka Daev Martian, Chenoa Nwokedi aka Crunchy Sweater) & Robin Köck aka Robin Fassie. It has a soft and jazz funk-esque feel mixed in with a deep inspiration of boom bap hip-hop. Daev Martain supplies the lyrical flow starting the track saying, “They say curiosity killed the cat, but I disagree with that.”. When asked about this at the screening Daev was talking about how perspective is different to everyone and that one doesn’t have to die to gain a new experience. A simple line but it sets the tune for the song where to me it means that, “That on this journey called life that we’re trying to figure out it’s okay to seek the things that interest and that you have to journey and discover who your people are.”

The trio talked about how the song stemmed from personal conversations shared with each other and how they realised they rely so much on their people and that as men it’s not always easy or sharing vulnerabilities and emotions even with our people. They wanted to breakdown the stigmas of asking for helping and running into the arms of your people and community.

When it comes to the visual side of the story. NLite enlisted the help of emerging production company Camagu Productions, founded by Dlozi Mata & Banyele Yengeni. The pair said, “They had been honoured to have been able to work on the collaboration with NLite.”, and that they had full creative freedom. Dlozi expressed this the most when he was retelling us the stories of the creative process, where he tried to write a treatment and explain it to everyone but it wasn’t coming across and then on the day he had a whole shot list but ended up freestyling most of the shoot and only use about 2 of the shots from the shot list. The only one who truly had to suffer from this creative process was Banyele, having to try and make sure they don’t exceed budget, getting all references that Dlozi sent him, and doing all the dirty, nasty work of administration and paperwork, a creative’s worst nightmare.

At the end of it all we get a brilliantly shot and thought-provoking short film with stellar visuals. I don’t want to describe the whole video for you, but it starts in black and white with two boys gunning down each other and a third one watching. In the next scene we see one of the boys running at full speed and the video carries on from there. This is the point where you stop reading to go watch the music video on NLite’s YouTube channel.

Now the video is said to be centred around the motif of running and running away from our problems and to our people, which is a beautiful message to get across but me being a therapist I looked at it differently. It had me think that the issue is we only run to our people when it’s too late and we are already in crisis but why don’t we phone them before hand when we see that there’s about to be a crisis? Why do we run away from the problem and to them instead of calling them to help us face our problems? Do we not trust our people to be our pillars and support beams or to only be the heroes when we can’t save ourselves?

Another point that Banyele bought up and that you’ll see in the video is that “The more you run away from the problem/situation and going towards your people you start to heal and become whole again, allowing you to see the light in the darkness.”. Being the child of a doctor; I know that for a wound to properly heal and not get infected, you have to clean it up first before any healing begins. Again, getting me to question why don’t we call our people to help clean our wounds and heal?

Being able to have all these emotions and thoughts being provoked, ignited and inspired was truly a soulful experience. NLite & Camagu Productions came together to show us that the art of music videos is far from dead and if it was then this was its resurrection. This music video is coming at such an important time with it being Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month so that as men we can question when & why do we run to our people, and when do we start to call on our people for help instead of running to them for help.

This song and music video was reminder that we are nothing without our people and that the only way to save ourselves is to be there for each other and that’s a message for OUR PEOPLE (people of colour) in this world. I want to thank NLite for including me as part of their people and I thank you for reading this because y’all are MY people.