New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Multi award-winning British musician
Stormzy has shared brand new visuals for "Need You". The single - taken from his critically acclaimed third #1 album This Is What I Mean - features Nigerian singer
Ayra Starr and long-time collaborator and multidisciplinary, tendai.
Directed by renowned British
Director Meji Alabi, the accompanying visual is enhanced by expertly crafted cinematography. Shot in an intimate setting -
Stormzy delivers yet another sleek performance - one that invites the viewer into a world that exudes luxury and elegance. Whilst we join
Stormzy on his journey to seek out his romantic interest in Ayra Starr, tendai comfortably keeps the enlivened crowd entertained.
Stormzy released his third album, This Is What I Mean in November 2022. Achieving the #1 position, the record was hailed by many as an undeniable classic; expansive, heartfelt and defiantly sprawling whilst effortlessly condensing any number of disparate styles and genres into music, which bravely broached any gap between modern
Black British music, soul and hip-hop.
The confidence which drove the album stemmed from a deeper and far more spiritual place than we have seen from
Stormzy previously. For all the success and awards that he has accrued during his brief, meteoric career, the lockdown that ensued from the coronavirus pandemic gave him one commodity he'd long lacked: time. And thanks to his sense of accomplishment following Glastonbury he was, for the first time, in a position to make the most of it.
A bold and courageous leap forward from his critically acclaimed previous two #1 records, Gang Signs & Prayer and
Heavy Is The Head, this isn't music simply for the pop charts but rather, an intimate and sincere love letter to music. He speaks on forgiving his absent father on the mellifluous "
Please" and refers to his challenges with paranoia, depression and self-doubt on penultimate track, "I Got My
Smile Back" - which also features a guest vocal from the incomparable India.Arie. It's a record which showcases intensely personal and lyrical themes which in turn lay bare the vulnerabilities, regret, frailties, healing, joy and triumph in a manner and to an extent that reframes the notion of what rap artists traditionally might do and be.
