Hey everyone, I’m B-ahwe, nice to meet you! I’m a Notts raised, London based, alternative soul singer/songwriter. I just released a summer sizzler with my long time friend and musical compadre TAMBALA, called “Ride 2 Nowhere”.
We wrote the song while traveling in Vietnam just before lockdown. It captures the freedom and escapism we feel when we get some time away. Gaining perspective on things we’re going through, tapping back into our best selves and remembering our problems are not all they seem close up.
We remember how much we’ve been through before, how much we are capable of. Really it’s about how summer has us feeling our best selves and we need to tap into that more aha! Incredibly two weeks after we wrote this it was lock down and we were far from our best selves, but we’re back now, that’s what counts.
The video was a huge labor of love, produced and co-directed by me, working with an absolute team of angels who have really poured their creativity into this. The visual side of my music has always been very important to me.
I’ve worked closely with artists spanning illustration, digital creation, animation and painting, across each of my releases, to create a unique world which reflects the journey of the music.
I’ve always been one for ethereal, fantastical escape, the concept for this video was to bridge together the two worlds and reflect the freedom of the song. It begins with the painted artwork, set at my desktop where the songs were written, you fall into my daydream and enter the painted world.
The artwork is painted by a friend and genius, Ralph Berryman. I approached him about bringing the painted world into the music video and he suggested making the sets miniature so we could create more of a journey.
Together we created the direction of the painted world and built the story to reflect the lyrical narrative. Inspired by 30s 2D animation he built these amazing layered moving paintings.
Seb Luke-Virgo’s direction helped piece together how the miniature and real life shots would all work, crafting the best shot ideas and navigating around having so many mediums to balance, along with Anand Singh our DOP.
Georgie Beattie created the beautiful set design for the day and moon shots, I even made a moon out of a hula hoop and fabrics. She also did a beautiful job on the stop motion animation of the opening curtains and helped us with her green screen knowledge.
Me, Kami Jogee and Grace Hatcher worked closely moodboarding the style and HMU for weeks. Kami nailed it with the pieces by amazing UK designers; a detailed knitted jewel dress by Paul Aaron, sleeves by senjabymaddie and jewellery by Stricly Bizzness.
The trousers are pieces I found by Manchester based Murci, along with some vintage top discoveries of mine. Grace was amazing at switching it up on the day, making a whole new look to suit the outfit with hardly any time.
It’s incredible what we achieved, I’m insanely thankful to the whole team for seeing through the vision and bringing their skills and energy. The jokes thing is it was meant to be a simple video in the beginning but creativity takes hold and you run with it.
Then you’re dressed as a moon in front of a moon you made yourself just thinking…most people would have bought a used car with this money or something, and here I am after weeks of planning, being the moon. I regret nothing.
Watch the video for “Ride 2 Nowhere” below and stream it everywhere else here.
