David Byrne - Make Believe Mambo

What this video is

Released October 3, 1989, 'Make Believe Mambo' was the lead single from Rei Momo, Byrne's debut solo studio album recorded immediately following the effective end of Talking Heads. The album represented a wholesale embrace of Afro-Latin rhythms — mambo, merengue, bomba, pagode — at a moment when 'world music' was entering mainstream critical discourse. The music video's stark black-and-white performance aesthetic,…

Why it matters

A landmark document of the late-1980s world music crossover moment, 'Make Believe Mambo' bridges art-rock post-punk sensibility with authentic mambo and Afro-Caribbean performance traditions. As a self-directed, low-budget video emphasizing choreography and monochromatic cinematography over…

The director

David Byrne (born May 14, 1952, Dumbarton, Scotland; raised in Maryland, USA) is the founding member and principal songwriter of Talking Heads (1975–1991), one of the definitive New Wave acts. He attended RISD and the Maryland Institute College of Art. He…