Video Premiere: “Loyalty,” by Lizzie No

“Tell me what you know about loyalty / I’ve been breaking my neck making people like me. / Holding hands with a shadow I can barely see / Call it loyalty.” It is a pleasure to premiere Lizzie No’s video for “Loyalty,” a song that I can’t stop listening to; the video is beautiful and arresting.

The video was directed by Annalise Lockhart, known for her work on HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness and shot by Emmy award-winning cinematographer Zebediah Smith. I listened to the song four or five times in a row and heard something new every time–the way the snare comes in perfectly at the second verse, those bass lines at the end of the third verse, and the way the song lifts at the bridge, with a double-time rhythm that draws you in again just as you think you’ve got the song’s structure figured out.

The video is just mesmerizing. There are so many close shots–a hand, a glove, seeing Lizzie around a corner or putting on make-up–that the shots that are even slightly larger feel expansive. The color red shows up as powerful imagery–in Lizzie’s lipstick, in the dress and headscarf she wears (which are folded on the examination table at the doctor’s office), even in the harp strings. It’s such a contrast with the dulled New York landscape or the sterile examination room.

Lizzie says of the song and its visual presentation: “If you are a Black woman, you wear psychic armor when you interact with the world. You dress the part, and you guard yourself against the hostility and disrespect that are baked into institutions. Doctors don’t believe you when you tell them you’re in pain. You have to always be on the lookout for street harassment and workplace discrimination. When you express your ideas, in the back of your mind you can hear people judging you as “aggressive.” It’s exhausting. The armor is heavy.”

The armor is heavy.

It’s a small hope, but I do hope that sharing this beautiful song and video helps our readers of color, especially Black women, see their experiences represented here. And I hope it helps our white readers, especially white men, be better at listening and seeing the experiences that are not our own.

You can find out more about Lizzie here and get her album, Vanity, here.

Photo Credit: Eavvon O’Neil