Whether it’s a mixed media piece of art, a club bumper or an electrifying set on a night out in Cape Town, there’s no doubt that multidisciplinary artist Queezy - or Queezy Babaz - aims to take audiences on a journey. Now in the exclusive launch of their latest musical offering, Queezy moves us away from the stresses of life and into to their fantastical Sexy Island. Think Afrikaburn (or Burning Man for our northern friends) meets mushroom-addled rave meets Studio 54 and you’ve got Sexy Island - a track and video that’s all about fun, freedom and living many lives at once.

Taking two years to fully form, the project is directed by Fynn Wilson and creatively directed by Queezy Babas, who explains the concept to me like this: “Sexy Island is an absurdist film posing questions about gender, sexuality and mental health while critiquing the heteronormative and at times conservative nature of Hollywood cinema. The film utilises media forms such as video, stop motion animation, illustration, painting, poetry and photography in a highly experimental manner to convey its message to the viewer. It was made with intense passion and love, and hopes to create awareness about the continued oppression facing queer bodies in South Africa while acting as a means of creative expression for the collaborating artists.”

No stranger to the Southern African art scene, Queezy is beloved by both critics and fans alike thanks to their thought provoking, under the skin’s surface kind of work. Featured in PAPER Magazine and i-D magazines and sharing stages with artists such as MIA and Slow Thai, the artist has always been unabashed about doing things their own way. Originally iterated as Queezzyy when the scene first got to know them, to Queezy to the Queezy Babaz character, Sexy Island is the culmination of much evolution, progression and change. And it’s no accident either - Queezy is taking the good, the bad and the ugly and putting it into the music, to show where they are right now, in the first stretch of 2022. At times that’s all things pulsing lights and revealing outfits while in other scenes in the video, ominous black refuse bag characters turn up to try and take the fun out of things.

“The mood of the video was inspired by a particularly dark time in my life where I was quite isolated and felt alone in love and relationships. At the time I also found myself Isolating to protect my energy, which became a personal chrysalis. In the video there is a central femme fatale trans figure and two other figures in black bags. The figures in black bags could be seen as my aura as you can’t really make out if they are humans in gimp suits or this cloud of darkness surrounding me. I wanted to communicate the idea of queer love which could present with more than one lover or as a sensation of being completely alone while imagining lovers being there,” explains Queezy.

There are a lot of layers to the video and despite being quite long for a dance track, it holds attention well. Sexy Island has been with me to the gym, to the beach and through an all-nighter of work. Its flexible, malleable and pumped full of energy, just like it’s creator. And it’s an important way of showing the ways in which a visual artist can keep hold of their craft even when venturing into the world of sound. “I always wanted to make visuals accompanied by sound because that’s how I see life when I listen to music, it’s all one big music video. As life is layered and collaged with many meanings that work together somehow, I felt I wanted to emulate that in my music videos,” says Queezy.

Intentionally or not, Sexy Island also speaks to the complicated nature of the city where it was born. On one hand Cape Town is known as a glittery, exciting city for the young, but in other ways it is still layered with a deeply unequal past (and present) and those not so happy layers don’t get left behind. So, whether you’re looking for a break from your troubles, a world to escape to, Sexy Island is it.