Singer-composer Suman Sridhar. Photo: @raw.mii
Singer-songwriter and composer Suman Sridhar’s The Black Mamba gets a new music video for “Plastic,” directed by Bengali filmmaker Qaushiq Mukherjee aka Q aka Oddfoof, one that swerves between news footage of India’s rivers and green spaces choked by plastic and performance art by Akkudev aka Akanksha Dev.
A commentary on the environmental crisis, Sridhar stays true to her experimental, unpredictable vocal flow by incorporating the jazz standard “Summertime,” which a press release terms as a “decolonized appropriation” that is placed in the context of the seemingly endless torment on natural resources in cities like Mumbai. “The video finally pushes humans to think of reality outside of our species, so as to not be desensitized by the daily ecological disaster that we are living with,” a video description adds.
The artist tells Rolling Stone India that she’d originally had a vision for the “Plastic” video to incorporate “found footage of garbage.” She adds, “It’s like a sarcastic ode to plastic. I wanted to recontextualize it, instead of just being disgusted with images of garbage, if it’s recontextualized with this music and with the song.”
Q, known for cult films like Brahman Naman and Gandu, counts himself as a fan of Sridhar’s, having listened to her three-part album The Black Mamba ever since it came out through 2023 and 2024. He says, “‘Plastic’ is one of my favorite tracks. Not only because of the music, but because of what it says and how it says it. The visuals have been imagined by Suman, myself and Hina, the editor. The abstract plastic dance was made possible by the very talented Akkudev.”
By filming part of the video in Goa – the footage of Sridhar singing is shot by filmmaker Dibya Chatterjee – Q says “Plastic” can also represent the way “Goa has been plagued by pollution and climate change.” He adds, “We wanted to show the pristine nature of Goa, before it altogether vanishes, keeping plastic very crucially as a part of scenario.”
Several years in the making, Sridhar’s live act and album The Black Mamba takes its name from “the most poisonous snake on the planet.” She adds, “And it’s about converting poison into medicine through sound.” The album – whose third and final part (which features “Plastic”) was released last year – had its world preview at the Tate Modern Museum in London in 2017, with filmmaker Natasha Mendonca’s debut feature film Ajeeb Aashiq/Strange Love. In the years since, the EP has been mixed and mastered by Indian-origin veteran sound engineer Miti Adhikari.
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