Ten weeks into its chart run, “Raindance” finally gets the visual treatment it deserves.
Shot in Lagos by Gabriel Moses, the video arrives just as the track hits a new peak at number three in the UK, having climbed steadily from its number five debut.
The timing isn’t accidental. With #24 on Spotify’s Global Chart and Top 20 positions across eleven countries, Dave and Tems are capitalizing on momentum that shows no signs of breaking.
The Lagos setting matters more than you’d think. For Tems, it’s home ground. For Dave, it’s a return to roots that his music has always honored but rarely made this explicit.
Gabriel Moses shoots with the kind of ease that only comes from actual familiarity, not the performative tourism that sometimes plagues these cross-continental collaborations.
Moses, whose work with Skepta and Little Simz established him as one of the most trusted UK visual translator, understands how to make diaspora feel lived-in rather than announced.
The easy narrative around “Raindance” centres Dave – he’s the album artist, the hometown hero with three consecutive UK #1s.
But Tems doesn’t just sing the hook. She restructures the entire emotional language of the track.
When she repeats “I love you” in the post-chorus, it’s not decoration. It’s the point. Dave can write about romance with his characteristic precision (“Looking in your eyes is the best thing / Brake lights giving you the red skin”), but Tems makes you feel it.
Her trajectory deserves its own consideration here. From her Grammy win with Wizkid and Burna Boy on “Essence” to features with Drake and Future, Tems has spent the past few years proving she can elevate anyone’s record.
But “Raindance” shows something different: what happens when she’s given space to actually duet rather than just provide a chorus.
The call-and-response structure between her verses and Dave’s lets both artists breathe, neither overwhelming the other.
The production from Kyle Evans, Jo Caleb, and Jonny Leslie works because it refuses to pick sides.
The piano that opens the track could score a Dave introspective or a Tems ballad.
The Afrobeats percussion never overwhelms the mix, sitting just prominent enough to signal influence without demanding centre stage.
It’s a delicate balance that most UK-Nigerian collaborations fumble, either going too hard on the African elements or treating them like sonic tourism.
Dave borrows from Drake on the third verse, consciously or not. “Wild child, beautiful child, I need your help / Looking like you came from the ’90s by yourself” echoes Drake’s “From Time”: “You’re a flower child, beautiful child, I’m in your zone / Looking like you came from the 70’s on your own.”
It’s not theft, more like Dave nodding to a template that works. Drake made vulnerability profitable in rap.
Dave’s been running with that blueprint for years, adding his own UK specificity and political consciousness to the formula.
Here, he’s using it to talk about domestic romance rather than fame’s isolation, which feels like growth.
Moses structures the video around the rhythm of a Lagos evening. It opens with Dave and Tems on a pier at sunset, the golden hour light catching the water behind them.
From there, it moves through a formal dinner scene, an intimate orange-lit room where Tems performs alone, and finally to a beach party at night with string lights strung between palm trees.
The progression from day to night, from quiet moments to celebration, mirrors the song’s own emotional arc.
Moses shoots most of it in natural light, letting Lagos’ specific textures and colors do the work rather than imposing a glossy sheen over everything.
This is Dave’s fourth collaboration with a Nigerian artist (Burna Boy, Wizkid, and Boj came before), and you can see him getting more comfortable with the exchange.
On his debut Psychodrama, the Burna Boy feature felt like a statement of intent. By We’re All Alone In This Together, Wizkid on “System” sounded like two peers trading verses.
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“Raindance” goes further: it’s a genuine meeting of styles where neither artist compromises.
Dave doesn’t try to match Tems’ melodic approach, and she doesn’t force herself into his percussive flow. They just coexist.
The commercial performance tells its own story. “Raindance” spent most of December hovering in the mid-twenties on the UK charts, losing ground to the annual Christmas song invasion.
But in January, it surged back, climbing to number three and showing the kind of longevity that suggests organic connection rather than algorithmic push.
Radio play picked up. TikTok found the “5’9″, brown eyes” outro. Young women in particular have claimed this song, which probably explains its staying power more than any critical analysis could.
Dave’s album The Boy Who Played the Harp landed to near-universal acclaim (87 on Metacritic) and massive sales (74,000 first-week units, Gold certification within six weeks).
But critics have noted its heaviness, the way Dave positions himself as a prophet figure wrestling with faith and responsibility.
“Raindance” provides the only real moment of levity on a record otherwise consumed with existential crisis.
It’s a smart sequencing choice, track five offering a breather before the album descends into “Selfish” and “Fairchild,” two of Dave’s most emotionally demanding songs yet.
The four sold-out O2 Arena shows Dave has scheduled suggest “Raindance” will become a live centerpiece. The question is whether he brings Tems out for any of the London dates.
She’s based in LA now, riding her own global success, but a joint performance would cement this as more than just a feature, positioning it instead as a genuine collaboration between equals.
What makes “Raindance” work, finally, is that it doesn’t announce its own importance.
In an era when every UK rap collaboration with an African artist gets positioned as some grand cultural statement, Dave and Tems just made a song about falling for someone.
The Lagos video adds context but doesn’t overwhelm the simplicity of that premise.
Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is trust that the work speaks for itself.