Watch Navy’s poignant new video for track Diamonds

Lifted from her new EP Bleu, Vol. 1, the video is premiering exclusively on Crack Magazine.

Dominican singer-songwriter Navy has today (10 September) released her debut EP, Bleu, Vol. 1, alongside a new Trevor Pretty-directed music video for shimmering lead single Diamonds.

The Diamonds visual includes footage of Navy captured in an idyllic beachside scene as well as clips shot during Black Lives Matter movement marches and summer 2020 protests. Sonically, Diamonds draws from a fusion of R&B and soul, with hip-hop, reggae, dancehall and Dominican folk music also explored elsewhere across the new record. 

“Diamonds is a radical hip-hop hymn where I look at the historical abuse of Black people and the lack of value they held to the oppressors,” says Navy on the new single. “In the song, I call on the ancestors for protection and retribution for the people wrongfully murdered and abused whose precious lives meant less than…I see the oppressed to be more precious and more valuable than any diamond of any value. The chorus being in Creole is a direct link to the African slave trade which is part of the Caribbean’s history, showing how the resilience of the slaves still carries on in language today. Though it’s a lament, it’s a symbol of strength and will to survive.”

Meanwhile, director Trevor Petty adds: “For centuries, our people believed in the magic of the water, and that God or our ancestors would hear our cries for help and cleanse our pain and struggles by us simply going to the water. The central theme of the visual is Navy calling on the ancestors by being wading in the water, and it concludes with the ancestors answering her call. The protests that launched and empowered the new civil rights movement are featured [too], as this ignited a new call-to-action.”

Bleu, Vol. 1 is out now via Pretty Boy Worldwide/The Other Songs. Stream the EP here and watch the Diamonds video in the player above.