Taken a cue from many of the late 90’s and early 2000’s videos of Missy Elliott, very talented singer/songwriter Victoria Monét returns to the scene today with her brand new JaQuel Knight-directed video for her latest single, Freak. Which was premiered earlier today via Billboard on her birthday of all days.
The new single is a very fun and unapologetic inhabitant one that finds Monét showing a more sexier side of her we don’t always see and is probably her most creative and hardest-working visual to date. Which is also probably one of the many reasons it’s her first video in over a year, when she dropped her vibrantly fun and playful video for her single ladies anthem, Ready. Which was also directed by JaQuel Knight and ironically enough was set to be the lead single to her anticipated debut album, Life After Love, that instead ended up being her latest EP, Life After Love, Vol. 1, released earlier this year.
A lesson in showing the more freakier side of her, it finds her in a dungeon-like setting flexing her dancing skills in various great choreographed forms of the more risqué type nature, as well as her driving skills and up close in the camera shots that harken back to not only the classic Missy Elliott videos, but late great Aaliyah and even Hype Williams great choreographed mostly, dark and dance-centric R&B videos of the late 90’s and early 2000’s.
Noting to Billboard in the following statement that it really was her hardest-working video to date, she had the following to say, ” It’s the hardest I’ve ever worked for a video in every way; from planning, budgeting and asking for favors, to weeks of rehearsals learning how to pole dance with no prior experience , countless hours of dance and workouts, balancing in those damn heels, dealing with confidence and comfortability with being overtly sexy on camera and even the editing process!”
Check out below how all that hard work resulted in such another great visual from the combination of the Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter and dancer, as well as Knight.