Petite Meller is back with a vibrant new track influenced by African beats, bursting with creativity and emotion. “Baby Love” is one of those summer tunes that can be enjoyed anywhere, in the car, on the beach or at the club.
The video is a colourful spectacle of joyful madness inspired by cinematic scenes from Brigitte Bardot’s 1956 film “And God Created Woman”.
In Petite’s own words, the video was also inspired by broken hearted school girls dancing their pain away.
It’s already been labelled a smash hit by Pop Justice. Have a listen and see if you agree?
What was the thought process behind shooting your video “Baby Love” in Africa?
I wrote Baby Love with Swedish producer Jocke Åhlund. We were in his studio in Stockholm and I wasn’t feeling the programmed drums so I asked him if I could beatbox with my mouth. It was an African rhythm that came out of me, then we added bongos and congos, and immediately I knew where this video should be shot. As a child I was always listening to records of Fela Kuti , LadySmith Black Mambazo and the Graceland album by Paul Simon – they are all important influences on my music.
You’ve talked about how this song is inspired by heartbroken school girls, care to explain further?
The story of the school girls in Nigeria who were kidnapped had a big effect on me. I couldn’t stop thinking about those girls, how they used to have normal lives with dreams, style and broken hearts too. I couldn’t forget them, and it was that idea that inspired the video. Hadija, the main character, had the perfect strong ambitious character for the video. It’s her who I follow into the desert. She uplifts me from my sorrow.
I can hear lots of different colourful influences in your music, how did some of these come about?
I love jazz artist like Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, and was inspired by Paul Simon’s Graceland album and Fela Kuti. My mom was always into Heavy poetic chansons like Baudelaire and Sartre. For me music will always be a combination of those with jazz melodies, I call it mon ‘nouveau jazzy pop’.
Is it important to you that there’s a deeper message to your songs?
Not really, I’d like people to have fun listening to my music. I’ve always preferred the taste of chocolate milk to the deepness of a sour coffee with no sugar. For me, just watching school kids dancing out of control to Baby Love in the school yard is everything.
It usually takes a while for artists to “come into their own” so to say, would you say that this has been a struggle for you as well or have you always known what you wanted your path to be like?
I used to do electronic pop, but while living in New York, walking down the Manhattan streets, I just had the feeling you can’t run away from what you really are. It was a call for me to create my own genre. The magic of the city brought me back to the Jazz and blues records of my childhood and my friend Justin Elephant who carries me in that video represents this whole voyage from empty suburbia to where it all came from, New York. Later, while writing Backpack it was even clearer for me. During a taxi ride I had a moment of enlightenment; for the first time in my life I finally felt free from the childhood symptom which used to hold me back and now became my biggest advantage as an artist.
You’ve got a very artistic and quirky style, which I adore by the way, what are some of the influences behind it?
I was hanging out with my grand parents a lot, we used to go on ski vacations and I always came back with a really burnt cheeks. My biggest role models come from Italian Cinema, like Anita Eckerberg and Monica Vitti. Their personas are larger then life, they don’t try to fit themselves to society. They can dance inside a fountain in the middle of the night or crawl on four in a conservative gathering just cause they feel funny.
Do you have any other great passions besides your music?
Actually most of my songs were written during philosophy lessons. Lacan, Deluze Kant and Shakespeare’s ideas are what I subconsciously write about.
What would your advice be to artists struggling to find or create their own persona?
As the philosopher Zizek would say: ‘Love your symptom!’, which means to take what used to hold you back all your life, your own physical obsession – which sometimes people may laugh at you about – take this thing, and treat it as your biggest present, your purpose in life. That’s where your best creation is. And that’s what my song Backpack is about, ‘A Backpack of Devotion’.
What is your idea of a perfectly spent day?
Drinking a large hot chocolate, then getting lost in a huge old library. For me that’s where heaven is. Meeting all those dead poets who are waiting quietly to be read.
Finally, what else can we look forward to from Petite Meller this year?
I’m releasing my debut album this year and there are lots more adventures, rides, performances and videos to come. I feel like an explorer of my unconscious, I’ve got ma backpack on, and I’m ready for the ride.
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