ALESSIA CARA’s debut single for Def Jam, 'Here', blew up earlier in the year, and the recent addition of a woozy boozy video has reignited interest in the track.
The song details a house party gone wrong. We’ve all been there, drink in hand and utterly unimpressed, and the single is a reminder that sometimes you just need to cut your losses and get outta there. She informs us that we’ll find her "somewhere in the corner under clouds of marijuana / with this music that I don’t wanna listen to and I don’t wanna get with you".
I applaud her forthright attempt to show up the banal bacchanal that comprises most school parties. Whilst plenty of other artists, young and old, froth over expensive drinks and hedonistic party culture, Cara shows that sometimes parties are a flop and your time would have been better spent jamming with friends on song covers or writing up your latest crush in your diary or just staying in and eating a tub of choccie ice cream.
The Ontario native, a youngster at only 19 who we can assume has suffered through her fair share of teenage house parties, hones in on what makes their caliber quite so questionable – namely, the girl in the kitchen who’s always gossiping and "the boy who’s throwing up coz he can’t take what’s in his cup no more". The slowed down swaying flow of her verses and tick tock pendulum beat are reflected in the frontal camera perspective and off kilter angles.
Her lyrical finesse and kick back beats play out over a wrangled up Isaac Hayes sample – the video accrues even more points as she has supposedly managed to recruit many of the original faces and characters who first inspired the song, re-creating the now infamous party for her neon purple hued clip. Have a watch:
Words by Katie Rowley
SEE ALSO:
