Kelela isn’t just remixing her 2023 album Raven for our listening and dance floor pleasure. It seems that the alt-R&B singer is also remixing the idea of the “music video” as well. Rather than give us the typical video we’re used to, she’s flipping things on their head for her upcoming RAVE:N, The Remixes, offering us five of what she’s calling “vignettes” to bring select tracks to life. She delivers the first of these with one for her recently released track “Happy Ending (A.G Remix).”
Just because this isn’t your typical music video doesn’t mean that we won’t be getting the performer’s flair for the unexpected. The remix mixes the UK’s grime with jersey club and drill, but the vignette takes us to the streets of Tokyo. There, Kelela silently struts through the streets with a menacing-yet-glamorous, all-black look that includes a halter/balaclava combo and form-fitting leather pants. The look, coupled with her bleach-blonde eyebrows and contacts that blackout her entire eye, keep her teetering on the cutting edge and allow us to have an altogether different experience with the song.
This, of course, was the intention that Kelela had all along. “[O]ne of the things I wanted to do was create visuals for the songs that weren’t singles. like a visualizer with no loops…one that makes you listen to the song in a diff way without it being a full on music video,” she wrote on Instagram. “[A]t one point we were calling them glorified screensavers.”
Whatever she wants to call them, this one has our attention, and we’re sure the others will, too. Spend a little time in Kelela’s world when you watch the vignette for “Happy Ending (A.G Remix)” below.
