Seven years after the release of their last album, N.E.R.D (including Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo, and Shay Haley) have made a triumphant return with the Rihanna-assisted ‘Lemon’.
‘Lemon’ premiered on Beats 1 on the show called OTHERtone, hosted by Pharrell, before the music video was dropped moments later on the bands website. The visual opens with Pharrell setting the mood, and Rihanna later rapping out a minute-long heavy-hitting set of bars. The Todd Torso and Scott Cudmore directed-video opens with Rihanna shaving a woman’s head in a hotel room. That woman ends up being the focus for the remainder of ‘Lemon’ as she dances in an indoor flea market.
That woman is also Mette Towley, who is a part of Pharrell’s actual live dance troupe known as ‘The Baes’ that he’s been working with for years. With her fresh buzz cut, Towley performs a solo freestyle routine. Her super-sculpted shape is covered in glitter as she twerks, gyrates, and pops in flawless superhuman fashion. Her newly shaved head embodies her inherent power, and with a breakout moment reminiscent of Teyana Taylor’s career defining appearance in Kanye West’s “Fade” video, it is most definitely a new beginning for Mette Towley in more ways than one.
The song also may not be exactly new as cultural references from 2015 are scattered throughout the track but whatever the reason was for it being shelved, the track is finally here and already slated to be a late-2017 bounce.
Check out the video and let us know what you think below.
