Singer/producer Juan Calderon‘s music video for his track “Empire” premiered recently. Off his debut EP JARA, the song itself is smooth, his vocals nothing less than gorgeous as they flow over the track.
Rapresent did a great job of capturing a scenario that happens all too often, when people turn to drugs to make a living. Shot in black and white, the music video is set in slow motion. A young woman leaves home to accompany a man on a night excursion to make some drug deals. Everything is relatively low key and seems normal, as they pass through what look like some more roughed-up areas of town. All the while, “Empire” plays in the background, lyrics like “You should make a new empire with the fairy tales and the kids playing” give you hope for the future.
A couple of times you almost expect something worse to happen, like the first time he accepts money through the window. They get through most of the night relatively unscathed, until a man approaches the car and pulls the driver out, throwing punches like crazy. The woman flees the scene, back to the home she left in the beginning. She still has hope for the empire.
The video comes full circle.
