Budding English singer-songwriter Jorja Smith has just unveiled a creative new music video for “On Your Own,” the opener and a standout cut from her well-received debut LP Lost & Found. The clip was directed by Rashid Babiker, the same director from the Smith’s own “Teenage Fantasy” video.
The video features Savannah Acquah as she turns the pages of a library book titled “Jorja Smith,” which details Smith’s own tales of love in a journey that comes to life through a series of cinematic photos. Smith herself is featured on the cover of a magazine along with personal polaroids and hand-drawn illustrations.
Babiker writes that “before Jorja even asked me to come up with a concept for ‘On Your Own,’ as a thought experiment I was imagining books, the hardback clothbound ones, being retrofitted into interactive photo books, or video books sometime in the future when print is in the terminal stages of obsolescence.
“To stage it in a way fitting for the song I channelled imagined-nostalgia from the perspective of a girl, a fan of Jorja, who’s living in an intentionally anachronistic world where these videobooks exist and cassettes are the new, old vinyl of today. Even with the nondescript time period, from the year markings in the book you can determine the book is from Jorja’s “lost & found” period and the world is set a bit further into the future.”
To Babiker’s credit, it certainly is a stunning visual. Check the video out below.