SOLA - SAVE YOURSELF

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Inner demons expressed in stark black and white soon dye into colour.

The British-Nigerian artist Sola releases the song Save Yourself , it expresses music that she categorises as 'warped soul'. Warped soul represents a fusion of deep vocals, experimental electronic production, influences from afrofuturism and Nigerian heritage. Director Savannah Setten made a video to echo this warped soul, 'hearing that Sola wrote the lyrics about overcoming depression, the visual idea for Save Yourself explores warped perception - the visual takes us on a journey through inner torment, reflection and ultimately finding new power to keep existing. '

Both Sola and Setten approached the visuals with real intuition of each other's feelings and how that should translate to the visuals. "Sola was really open creatively and up for experimenting while we shot, pushing her performance and doing things a little differently. When you shoot videos I always think it's good to experiment as you shoot even if you've got an AD telling you to stop and move on / even if in your head you think, this isn't going to make it to the edit. Sometimes the things I never thought would make the edit end up being the biggest most beautiful part of the video! I've learned there is a lot of beauty to be found in the unexpected."

"Writing 'Save Yourself' was a healing process," Sola says. "I wrote it during a time of deep depression and it's essentially me talking to myself about fighting your inner demons, knowing your self-worth, and learning to love yourself through your flaws. There weren't really any direct inspirations, it was more a need to get these thoughts out in an expressive way and capture my mood at the time."

"Emotionally I really connected with how Sola wrote the song about overcoming depression. Depression is something Ive struggled with myself in the past, I went through a time where I couldn't see the joy in anything anymore; life felt a little black and white.. like the video. Its crazy because a lot of the powerful, creative and strong women around me in life I know struggle with mental health problems, be it anxiety, depression.. or just generally struggling with emotion and their path... yet the topic is still taboo, when really its very normal and it doesn't mean you are weak at all! I learned that despite struggling with emotions this definitely does.not.mean there isn't beauty to be found in life again, or that you aren't talented/can't overcome your struggles! This felt like a really important message to get across in the SOLA visual. The world around SOLA saturates with colour again once her lyrics reflects she felt stronger and we felt like this gave women watching it hope: ending on such strong visuals of SOLA being naked and only wearing the crown. "

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