Black Pumas — an Austin duo that are among the artists nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy — have dropped their new video for “Colors,” a single off their self-titled debut album.
The group consists of singer Eric Burton, who was once a busker at the Santa Monica Pier, and Grupo Fantasma member and producer Adrian Quesada. The funk duo formed in 2017 and released their debut LP Black Pumas in June.
The video for “Colors,” directed by Kristian Mercado, opens with Burton returning to his busking roots with a solo performance in an alley before the visual offers of tableaux of life in the Bronx.
“I really wanted to capture how powerful the sounds and vocals of Black Pumas are,” Mercado said in a statement. “I’m driven by emotion and felt a strong connection to the music. I was on a trip in Florida at Banana Records when I heard ‘Colors’ playing. I was instantly moved and asked tons of questions about who they were. It was such a powerful song and experience that I sought out to do the music video for the song.”
Mercado added, “We shot the whole film in the Bronx, wanted to show the Bronx as a place that was alive and vibrant. We wanted to celebrate family, connections, movement and life. We explored the idea of the Bronx as a living garden, always growing, always moving forward, and finding a cinematic landscape in places people often ignore. Eric and I spoke in great length about perspective and growing up, and how sometimes it’s a complicated experience, and we want to capture the feeling that is both beautiful and sometimes imperfect. We wanted to show both the joys and hardships of life colliding and expressing things in movement with images colliding together.”
Black Pumas will face Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Rosalía, Maggie Rogers, Yola, Tank and the Bangas and Lil Nas X in 62nd Annual Grammy Awards’ Best New Artist category on January 26th, 2020.