3 international music videos filmed in South Africa in 2016

South Africa is just awesome, isn’t it? For international visitors, they can enjoy the exhange rate while breathing in the abundant sights, sounds and rich heritage. And no one seems to understand this better than musicians.

Cape Town and Johannesburg have been the scene of many a music video in their days, but while quite a few famous videos have been snapped here, including tracks from Faithless, Blue and Pharrell Williams, you may not have known that three particularly big tracks from international artists have been made right here this year.

See? 2016 wasn’t so bad.

Tinie Tempah & Zara Larsson – Girls Like

Featuring Cape Town’s colourful buildings and lovely people, this video debuted on YouTube earlier this year. The London-born musician is usually known for his rhyming puns and grungy sound. But he moves away from the latter in Girls Like, in favour of a South African-inspired house beat.

The video itself has been viewed over 132-million times on YouTube, with over 540 000 likes.

Jonas Blue & JP Cooper – Perfect Strangers

This is perhaps a little more obviously filmed in Cape Town. Another UK based dance musician, Jonas Blue, decided to shoot Perfect Strangers in the Mother City, featuring Table Mountain, Kirstenbosch’s Boomslang, the Two Oceans Aquarium and the inner city’s popular Greenmarket Square. We can’t forget about the city’s beautiful people either.

South Africa has been a popular music video destination for a while, hosting the likes of Faithless and Solange Knowles in the past

The track also features a kwaito-inspired beat and accompanying horns, with lyrics sung by UK artist JP Cooper.

The video itself has garnered over 170-million views, with comments including phrases like “Beautiful Cape Town.”

Jain – Makeba

Inspired by and paying tribute to the legendary South African jazz musician Miriam Makeba, French world pop artist Jain headed to Johannesburg to shoot this video. Landmarks include Orlando Power Station’s famous towers, Ponte Tower and a quite astounding view over Johannesburg’s central business district.

The video itself is just over a week old at the time of writing, but it has already amassed over 750 000 views, with more than 20 000 likes. Nice one, Jozi.