WATCH: FKA Twigs Releases New Video For “Video Girl”

London’s singer/dancer/producer FKA twigs releases new video for “Video Girl,” off her latest album LP1.

FKA twigs, London’s singer/dancer/producer, releases new music video for the song “Video Girl,” from her debut album LP1, off the Young Turks label.

The video opens with FKA twigs (AKA Tahliah Debrett Barnett) singing a choir-esque track dubbed with backing harmonies while we watch an inmate being euthanized. The dark shadows covering FKA twigs make her look almost evil, as she blankly watches the inmate’s execution. The video pauses soundless for a few seconds, before returning with a beat and FKA twigs dancing in the execution room.

As we watch FKA twigs rhythmically move her body closer to the dead man, her soft melodic voice sings, “you don’t stand a chance/stop acting like you can.” The video’s use of violence showing the execution, another man’s mouth drenched in blood, and FKA Twigs making stabbing motions into the executed inmate contrasts with the innocence in FKA twigs soft melodies.

The singer, Tahliah Debrett Barnett, is originally from Gloucestershire, England, born to a jazz dancer of Jamaican heritage, and a dancer/gymnast mother of English and Spanish descent. She was raised by her mother and her stepfather, and didn’t meet her biological father until she turned eighteen.

By sixteen, Barnett had started playing music in youth clubs, and by seventeen, Barnett moved to London to pursue her career as a dancer. Her dancing credits include performances in music videos by artists such as Ed Sheeran, Kylie Minogue, Taio Cruz, and Jesse J. In 2011, Barnett danced in a BBC skit titled Beyonce Wants Groceries.

Barnett originally got her stage name from her dancing nickname twigs, because of her cracking joints, eventually adding FKA (formally known as) after another artist by the name of twigs complained.

FKA twigs self-released her first EP EP1, on Bandcamp, in December, 2012. By the release of her second EP EP2, FKA twigs had been picked up by the label Young Turks. Her second EP nominated her for BBC’s Sound of 2014 prize.

Her latest album, LP1, was also released on the Young Turks label, and was out August 2014, featuring the songs, “Two Weeks” and “Pendulum.” The album received rave reviews from critics, receiving an 8.8 from Pitchfork, and The Av Club’s Kyle Fowle’s praise, “LP1 is the rare album that manages to sound both lived in and completely futuristic.”

In “Video Girl,” FKA Twigs sings, “Is she the girl from the video/you lie and you lie and you lie,” alluding to Barnett’s desire to be known for herself and her talents, and not just as a dancer in the background of another star’s video.

FKA twigs recently announced her first North American tour, kicking off with her TV debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on November 4th. With half of her American tour dates already sold out, Tahliah Barnett is closing the year with a bang, and is set to emerge as one of the most exciting musical acts of 2015.