PSY and Hwa Sa take things back to the Reagan era in the high-energy video for their Psy 9th collaboration “Now.” The cover of the uptempo Jermaine Jackson/Pia Zadora jazzercise jam (originally titled “When the Rain Beings to Fall”) opens with the “Gangnam Style” singer bumping into an unsuspecting citizen on the street before the man, inexplicably, hops into a phone booth and taps out the song’s hyper synth groove into the keypad, which dials up the action.
The colorful vertical performance video then mostly focuses on PSY — rocking a lime green suit — pulling off his signature smooth dance moves in a white void while MAMAMOO‘s Sa shakes her hips next to him in a skintight blue and white catsuit. They groove by themselves in tricked-out phone boxes, croon into old-school microphones and generally seem to be having a great time with their crew of youthful dancers.
Like Jackson and Zadora in the original, PSY and Sa appear to dig the spirited choreo, though the update, sadly, doesn’t incorporate the original clip’s vaguely futuristic tribal vibe. Speaking to Billboard, PSY said that he would not have even considered taking the song on if Hwa hadn’t hopped on board.
“I hadn’t met her in person,” he said. “But I just approached her saying, ‘I have a track and I want to make a remake of this classic song between male vocal and female vocals. But the female has got to be powerful, so, I think it’s you. I’ll send you the track, but what do you think?’ And she says, ‘I’m going to do it.’ Without listening! So I was like, ‘Wow, I’m a huge fan of Hwa Sa, and she’s responding, on the spot, without listening.’”
Check out the “Now” video below.
