RB: Robert Bruce
SM: Shayna Marie
S: Stormzy
Stormzy reveals the iconic music video for ‘Mel Made Me Do It’ took nine months as he says he wanted it to “reflect” the past three years being a “true representation”
RB: We’ve got to talk about the music video ‘Mel Made Me Do It’ […] Talk to me about the video, how it all came together? How did everyone keep it a secret?
S: Well, where do you start? It took about, I want to say nine months, eight months, and firstly, big, big shout out to KLVDR because he’s the director and as you can see done a phenomenal job and he really delivered, and Jackie as well from my team and Nicola from my team as well. It was the coming together of all our ideas and all our minds and we really pushed and challenged each other in every way, shape or form. So, the initial idea, I was like ‘okay, it’s my first single and it’s my first video coming back, and I just want it to reflect my life for the past three years’. My life for the past three years is family, joy, and peace, that’s how I describe it. So even like, the scene with me and my family in the in the kitchen, I was like ‘I just want it to be a true representation of where I’m at.’
Because I’m not angry, you know. […] So even if you hear on a rhythm, even when I’m spitting you can that hear I’m smiling, I’m having fun. Even my approach to the song, I’m just rapping and having fun, so I just wanted the video to reflect that.
[…]
It was a long nine months of hard work and repetitive shooting and then we had the video and I wasn’t too happy with it so we had to do another two days of shooting so there’s a lot of stuff that was in the video that got taken out and yeah, it was just a lot. And we really, really challenged each other and that’s what I think great art does. KLVDR is a G, like he absolutely killed it.
Stormzy describes “beautiful” process recording his new album on a secluded island – VIDEO HERE
SM: We know you recorded bits from the album on a secluded island in the UK and you brought producers, you brought musicians, artists, loads of creative minds. What was that process like for you? And do you have any memories or experiences that you can share with us?
S: It was my favourite musicians and my favourite producers, my favourite artists just in this big house, with different rooms where you might have Kassa on the top floor making music and then you got Jacob Collier in the room over there…. It was very surreal but then when you marry that with the fact that it wasn’t just musicians, we became family on that trip, like that’s my brothers and my sisters. And we’ll go play football, and then we’ll come back and then even we’ll have breakfast together and we’ll pray together at breakfast and then Twin would say “think of a song, everyone has to write down a song on a piece of paper, a song that reminds you of love” and then everyone’s different versions of it and then plug it into the aux and everyone plays the music and it was just such a beautiful… Any way I describe it will be an injustice, it was very, very beautiful and moving.
And we made phenomenal music on top of that and that was just a by-product. That was a by-product of what was happening and there weren’t even like ‘we’re making rhythms today’, it was just like we’re feeling today and we’re laughing today and we’re smiling today and then oh, there’s young Tendai who’s one of the greatest musicians on the planet and he’s gonna make some music and then we’re gonna come in the room and P2J’s gonna pull up and it was just mad. Yeah, it was beautiful man. It was beautiful.