Less than a week after its release, Omah Lay’sWaist is already approaching half a million streams on YouTube, a response that reflects the track’s early traction beyond streaming platforms. Built around warm guitars, deep bass, and a measured groove, the song sits comfortably within Omah Lay’s Afro fusion universe, balancing sensuality with emotional restraint. The newly unveiled music video expands on that mood, adding a visual layer.
Directed by Lokmane and shot in Paris, the video unfolds with a controlled pace. Omah Lay appears as a painter, a recurring figure of introspection and creation, positioned between isolation and connection. Around him, muses move through the frame with a physicality guided more by rhythm than choreography, echoing the song’s push and pull between desire and discipline. There is no linear storyline to follow, only fragments of movement and interaction that mirror the track’s understated tension.
Visually, Waist relies on contrast to shape its atmosphere. Open landscapes meet enclosed interiors, light shifts between softness and shadow, and moments of stillness are interrupted by fluid motion. Sensuality is present throughout, but it remains restrained, suggested through proximity and timing rather than explicit gesture.
Omah Lay’s presence anchors the video. He moves through each scene with quiet assurance, less focused on performance than on inhabiting the emotional space of the track. Creation is portrayed as something tactile and personal, shaped by environment and human exchange, reinforcing the song’s introspective tone.
Arriving shortly after his Grammy nomination alongside Davido for With You, Waist feels less like a statement of arrival and more like a moment of consolidation. It captures an artist refining his language, both sonically and visually, and leaning into subtlety over excess.