Griff launches incredible quarantined video for new single, ‘Forgive Myself’ (Warner Music)
Griff launches incredible quarantined video for new single, ‘Forgive Myself’
“Griff looks every bit like pop’s bright new star…it is, quite frankly, all rather brilliant” – i-D
“A fierce and distinctive talent…perfection” Sunday Times Breaking Act
“Writer, producer, stylist, designer and creative director, it’s clear that Griff is a force to be reckoned with” Vogue
“Griff is the hottest new artist to come out of the UK since Dua Lipa.” V Mag
“A phenomenon…the teenage boss about to take charge of pop” NME
Griff has today launched an incredible video for new single, ‘Forgive Myself’ (all filmed at home on her phone). Her second release of 2020, this comes hot on the heels of viral track ‘Good Stuff’, which charted in the top 40 on Apple Music, was selected for Radio 1’s BBC Introducing playlist, and has seen Griff pass 1.6 million monthly listeners on Spotify (as well as performing a beautiful rendition for La Blogothèque in Paris). A truly prodigious young talent, Griff released her first project (‘The Mirror Talk EP’) the same week she finished her A-Levels last year, and has since performed sold-out shows in London, New York, and LA: her upgraded show at London’s Lafayette is currently rescheduled for September 15th, with Griff also having just appeared at Radio 1’s Big Weekend.
On ‘Forgive Myself’, Griff confirms her potential as the new face of British pop. Flipping the break-up song on its head, it’s less about an ex or teenage heartache as it is the relationship you have with yourself: those doubts, insecurities and questions of self-worth that only you can fix, if you are to have the courage to love again. As rawly intimate as it is spiritually empowered, ‘Forgive Myself’ takes influences of electronic music, soul and R&B rendered in richly DIY style (all held together by Griff’s soon-to-be instantly identifiable voice). For the video, in Griff’s own words…
“Quarantine came and we had no video for ‘Forgive Myself’, so I kinda had no choice but to try and pull off a music video alone in my house. Once we brainstormed the idea for the video, I started sewing some of the outfits; I then got sent some lights, two projectors and a few tripods and spent the day filming the video on my phone and the team directed me through Zoom. it was definitely the most intense video I’ve done so far, but I’m quite proud of what we pulled off.”
Multicultural, multi-hyphenated and multi-talented, Griff is a welcome reminder in uncertain times of everything still possible in a new artist. A singer, producer, songwriter and straight-A-student, hers is the sort of hands-on approach which has long-extended to Griff making her own clothes, shooting live visuals crammed into her studio, or trying her hand at creative direction (right down to sewing her own curtains for Hoxton Hall). This formidable work ethic and endless curiosity started in the home she’s now stuck in, where Griff was born in Watford to Chinese and Jamaican parents. She began making music by borrowing her brother’s Logic: teaching herself how to produce songs in secret from her classmates (many of whom only found out what Griff was up to when they heard her on Annie Mac). And from her startlingly mature early releases to her signature bubble ponytail, Griff has shown a shrewd observational eye for the highs and lows of young adulthood. ‘Mirror Talk’, for instance, addresses her generation’s issues with self-perception; ‘Good Stuff,’ too, is a gorgeous piano-ballad with a twist (describing the separation from foster children). And on ‘Forgive Myself’, it’s Griff’s fearlessness in her work – coupled with the hopes and fears of any 18 year old – that see her poised to take the next step towards a new kind of stardom: bedroom-pop, fit for the world stage.
