MNELIA
Mnelia was one of my earliest and most sustained creative partnerships. We started working together from the very beginning of her journey, at a point where we were still figuring out what her world looked like. That foundation made everything that followed feel grounded in something real.
Mnelia — Say Yeah (Acoustic) Music Video
Concept
The original Say Yeah is upbeat, vibey, full of energy. This was the opposite — just piano and her voice, completely stripped back. The challenge was matching that rawness visually without losing the world we'd already built around her.
Creative Decisions
We shot it in a recording studio and kept everything focused on Mnelia. No distractions, no excess — she was the centre of everything and the camera never let you forget that.
The colour palette stayed consistent with what we'd established across her videos, purples and deep pinks, so it still felt like her world even in this more intimate setting. Familiarity was important. This was a different side of the same artist.
The steadicam operator was key to how the whole thing felt. Rather than cutting our way through it, we let the camera move with her, honing in on moments, breathing with the performance. You don't want to interrupt something that raw with too many edits. Letting it unfold almost as one continuous take gave it the emotional weight the song deserved.
Mnelia — My Bad Music Video
Concept
My Bad was a two day shoot in Antigua, and from the moment we landed it was about learning the island and letting it do the work. Mountains, ocean, a nighttime bar scene — we moved through it all and let each location bring something different to the story.
The song is about the sadness of a relationship ending, and shooting somewhere that beautiful gave that feeling space to breathe. She's somewhere else now, somewhere new, and you feel that. Me and Mnelia had been building our creative relationship since the very beginning, and by this point there was a real trust between us — you can feel that in how she moves through the video.
Creative Decisions
The whole visual world was rooted in the nineties. JLo, Ashanti — that warmth, that colour, that way of shooting a woman like she's the centre of the universe. That was the reference point and we held it throughout.
The priority was always keeping the look polished and clean while letting the locations do the heavy lifting. Beach, mountains, a nighttime bar, the ocean at dusk — each setting brought its own texture and we let the camera find the beauty in all of it. The drone work gave us scale when we needed it.
Colour did some quiet narrative work too. Blue crept in at certain points, not as a style choice for its own sake but because it served the emotion of the song. It's a sad story at its core, a relationship reaching its end, and that cool tone underneath the warmth of Antigua gave the video somewhere to go emotionally.
Mnelia — Shoot Music Video
Concept
Shoot is a warning. That's what I heard when I first listened to it — someone telling another person that they need to come clean, that the games need to stop. When I think of a warning, I think of red. That became the foundation for everything.
Creative Decisions
We shot the whole video in one studio location and built the world entirely through colour and composition. Red ran through every scene — not as a decorative choice but as a statement. It reinforced the tension and the message of the song at every turn.
The prop choices and setups all fed into the narrative. A Ferrari, a gun, a dark room with photography. One of the standout scenes was Mnelia sat in front of a lavish mirror dresser, doing her makeup while writing a letter to this person — a warning, put down in writing. It was a beautiful composition and it added another layer to the storytelling without spelling anything out. Each element leaned into the shoot concept both literally and figuratively, and for me composition was a huge focus on this one — really taking time with every setup to make sure each frame felt considered.
Mnelia — Say Yeah Music Video
Concept
Say Yeah was the first video me and Mnelia ever made together, and it came from a genuine moment of discovery. Someone sent me her music and I was immediately struck by her — the personality, the voice, the clarity of her creative vision. We spoke and just clicked. It felt like the start of something.
At the time there wasn't a lot of R&B coming out of the UK scene, and that felt like exactly the reason to do this properly. We wanted to capture that old school American R&B energy — lowriders, girls in bedrooms talking about boys, dancing, that warm nostalgic feeling of those videos — and give it a distinctly London look and feel. It ended up gaining over two million views.
Creative Decisions
Everything was in service of that world. The references were classic — the kind of R&B videos that defined an era — and we held that visual language throughout while keeping it grounded in who Mnelia is and where she's from. It was her first video, and you wanted it to feel like an arrival.
Mnelia — Senseless Music Video
Concept
Senseless came at a significant moment — Mnelia was becoming a mother, and she wanted that to be part of the video. It felt right to honour that while staying true to the world we'd been building together. That bright, poppy, nineties energy had become her signature, and this was another chapter in it.
Creative Decisions
The references were Destiny's Child Say My Name and Kanye's Gold Digger — two videos that do incredible things with colour, scene transitions and editing technique. We took specific things from each. From Gold Digger it was the fake magazine ad inserts, those graphic pop-up moments that break the frame in the best way. From Say My Name it was the set design approach — the way the cast and their outfits are colour-matched to the set, everything working together and playing off each other at the same time. We brought that same energy into a group dance scene that directly referenced that Destiny's Child world.
Colour and movement were everything in terms of how we shifted between scenes, but the moment that stands out most is the breakdown. We overcranked the shot — filming at twice the normal speed so it plays back in slow motion — and had Mnelia performing to the slowed tempo on set. The result is this beautiful, suspended feeling that just opens the song up at exactly the right moment. It's one of those scenes that just feels right when you watch it back.
Becoming a mother only added to the fullness and joy that runs through the whole video. She's fun, she's bright, and everything we built around her reflected that.