In the lead up to Miguel’s forthcoming album, War & Leisure, the king of the slow jams delivers politically charged insights – adding to his already feel-good R&B sound.
“Told You So”, the artists latest single, is a funky groove track filled up with layers of meaning. “I don’t wanna control you, I can set you free, just come with me,” he bellows out, “every pleasure you taste has its price.”
The accompanying music video finds Miguel speeding through the desert, stopping at a flat dusty mound, and unleashing his voice while rockets launch in the distance, inter-cut with ghastly explosions and footage of past protests.
The American singer/songwriter and media sensation is more invested than most in the look and feel of his music videos. As an actor and music producer he implicitly understands the fine balance between sure-fire imagery and the musical components used in explicitly projecting his artistry.
Miguel worked closely with director Karim Huu Do who lead the track’s creative vision in finding a balancing point between aggression and elation, which influences the visual feel of the song. Huu Do cuts through commercial cliché, melding an atmospheric and dreamy aesthetic approach to directing and filmmaking with breathtaking vision. When I asked Karim, literally how exactly did he do it; he stated that, “To be honest I don’t know how we did it, we used so many different tools to achieve the glitches and interference’s [and there are so many of them] that it’s difficult to say.”
Previously having worked with the likes of Drake, Pharrell, Rita Ora, David Beckham, Damian Lillard, The Shoes, Alexander Wang, Adidas, and now Miguel to name a few, as well as accumulating an increasing number of directorial awards, this absurdly promising creative filmmaker is most definitely one to keep an eye out for as he adds his part to the tidal wave of new generation directors like Hiro Murai, DANIELS, Hannah Lux-Davis, Warren Fu, and Michel Gondry.
Check out the clip below and let us know what you think.