Adée - A Portrait
“Hey, I have this idea for something I wanna try out at Brighton,”
“Okay, cool!”
That’s pretty much how this video came about.
I’d been thinking about the idea of an EPK (Electronic Press Kit) video being something more experimental than just a self-indulgent trailer. I feel like it should be individual to the artist. Really encapsulate them visually, mentally, and audibly.
I had no real idea how it’d turn out beforehand, nor did I know that the venue of Adée’s performance in Brighton would have a mind-blowing lighting set-up. What I did know that I could count on was Adée performing like her life depended on it.
I have a huge admiration for artists that perform in the moment and don’t just have recycled and rehearsed lines to intro songs. I get that it’s nerve-racking to be on-stage let alone speak from the heart and hope you don’t fuck it up by saying something you’ll later regret - but seeing someone perform that is just so tuned in to moment, that’s badass.
Over the last few months, I’ve talked to Adée a lot about her mindset going on-stage, in the studio, or generally in life, and she has a lot of wisdom to what she does - I’m just never recording audio when we talk. I deliberated with asking her to sit down and us just talk about everything with the hopes that she’d casually drop the perfect pearl of wisdom for the video, but it all just felt forced and I wanted it to be natural. I wanted it to be the real Adée, and not some line that’s been tailored to fit her brand.
So, I just left the camera rolling between songs of her set, and caught everything she said.
“And every time I sing, it’s just - I just feel like this is why I’m here. All of us are giving, like, everything we have to be here. To be alive. You meet people who think that you should be more normal. I think it’s a universal thing. Like if you dream really, really big, people will get kinda scared of it”
I’ll write about the performance some other time when I post the Highlight video and photos of it.
This is just about Adée the artist, she’s willing to try anything that you can pitch to her. In this day and age, I think it’s worth the commitment to experimentation - poking and prodding in different directions to figure out what works for you, what inspires you, and what pushes you to do more.
Adée’s drive, bravery and persistence inspires me to try new things and keep going even when everything feels like I should stop.
So, thank you for that, Adée.
