Ivy Sole finds strength on a deserted Ghanaian beach in new “Bamboo” video; new album ‘CANDID’ out next week

Next week, east coast hip-hop favorite Ivy Sole releases her latest project CANDID, and she says the album questions what we believe about relationships between ourselves and our loved ones.

That’s especially evident on the new single “Bamboo,” which finds Ivy singing a yearning melody about best friends turned lovers turned estranged partners who deeply miss one another.

“It’s a lamentation for love that never makes it to the light, but more aptly the dismay, confusion, and longing that comes with unreciprocated willingness to step into light together,” she told The Fader this week.

This is illustrated in Ivy’s lyrics about overcoming fear, whether to embrace passion — “I was too scared to say it, you were too scared to shout it, it wasn’t news to us, but tell ’em read all about it” — or to know when to walk away — “Left my bamboos on the table and my heart past the door, baby I’m not scared to miss you anymore, anymore.”

“One of the songs that has been a mainstay for me is PM Dawn’s ‘Set Adrift on Memory Bliss’ and that phrase is one of the many inspirations for the sonics,” Ivy said to The Fader. “Life and love had set me adrift and I wanted to sway towards some kind of equilibrium. ‘Bamboo’ is a pendulum, steady and flowing, the epitome of the slow crawl of stasis towards static.”

To accompany the song, Ivy Sole and Jesse Bronstein — her frequent filmmaker collabator — traveled to Ghana to shoot on a deserted beach and coastline, with the performer opening up on the sand, along the shoreline, and in front of the setting sun. Watch the gorgeous clip below; CANDID comes out on Wednesday, February 2nd. Ahead of that, she’s presenting the Candid Film Festival, a livestream on January 28th spotlighting her favorite Black filmmakers; tickets are available here.