NewsJoey B called it "Sunshine", then shot the whole video at night
The 2017 single, produced by Nova, opens as a prayer in Twi and is set in a night-time Western lit mostly by fire. The sun appears only in the video's final shots.
Joey B released the official video for "Sunshine" on 25 May 2017. The song, produced by Nova and released under World Records, is on his 2017 EP Darryl. Darryl is his real first name. The video credits its directors as "Chuck Norris" and "Charlie Kwesi Ranger", cowboy names for Prince Dovlo and Joey B himself. A remix featuring Sarkodie, also produced by Nova, followed in early June 2017.
A prayer, not a brag
The song opens in Twi with "Yesu gye me", "God save me", before Joey B says he works too hard and is stressed. He asks God for life and grace, and for protection from "new faces". He calls the music business "the industreet": the industry as a street.
Rain and reign
The hook is "Ain't no sunshine in the rain / All I wanna do is reign". The first half echoes the title of Bill Withers' 1971 song "Ain't No Sunshine". In the second verse Joey B says he feels like 2Pac and that "only God I dey fear". In Twi he then sings that he is suffering, and that he prays.
Night until the last shot
The video is a Western shot almost entirely at night: cowboy hats, horses, a campfire, torches. It is lit mostly by fire. In the final shots the sky turns orange over electric poles and a cowboy walks off carrying a guitar.
It's not a song about the sun. It's a song about the night before it: the stress, the fake faces and the prayers. The video only lets the sun in when the song is over.
- YouTube: Joey B - Sunshine (Official Music Video), 25 May 2017
- YouTube: Joey B - Sunshine (Audio), "Produced by NOVA"
- UMusicians: Joey B (ft. Sarkodie) releases "Sunshine" remix (June 2017)
- Confirmgist: Joey B - Sunshine (Remix) ft. Sarkodie (4 June 2017)
- Wikipedia: Joey B
Every factual line in this story is checked against at least two independent sources, unless the text says it comes from one report.