An anthem, defiant rallying cry, and raw evocation of what it means to be a black woman living in the cross-hairs of society. Salomon Ligthelm, with Simz, has created a visceral essay about black people's lives, fulled by fear, exhaustion, frustration and political awakening. Ligthelm's brilliant work captures the essence of the powerful emotion driving Sim'z track with a stunning collage of choreography, performance, archival news footage, classical painting, home movies and a brilliant sense of Simz' home city.

Director Salomon worked with Little Simz previously. Having stayed in touch, Simz reached out about a new project, sending over the track Introvert. Taking note of the lyrics, the sound, and the scale, Salomon connected with Simz and her creative director Jeremy Cole. Salmon recounts, "I remember telling them in broad-strokes about some visual/thematic ideas I had. They looked at each other and smiles. They said I had explained to them an idea which was pretty much exactly what they had in mind. Then they sent me their brief and sure enough - we had completely synergetic ideas".

The creative process was a very fluid and collaborative process between Ligthelm, Simz and Cole. With the track crossing a lot of thematic territory, the imagery needed had to match the scale of the music and lyrics but be carful not become didactic. The film wanted to explore people's struggles to to find themselves, especially when the world (politicians, corporations), is turning people against each other and where its hard to know who are and when you are made to feel like an outcast, an enemy...

This creative collaboration sought to create a film about finding people moving from a state of chaos and societal disconnection into a space of community, connection and freedom- embracing a true understanding of who they are.

Introvert cuts clips together of archival and newly shot footage to protests and social unrest with majestic dance sequences with the collaged structure perfectly mirroring the landscape it maps; a place of beauty and danger, of violence and dogged resistance. It became obvious to director Salomon Ligthelm, early on, that it was going to be difficult to find imagery that match the scale of the music and lyrics. A lot of the archival, and use of art history elements were considerations drawn up right at the outset. Paintings were used to help illustrate this, helping to lend scale in a way that more "custom shot" footage/scenes may not.

Introvert was shot on a mix of formats but predominantly 16mm and 4-perf 35mm film across two days and a multitude of locations which included the Natural History Museum, Wallace Collection, Peckham and Crystal Balance sports ground. These shots, with Ligthelm's energetic style of story telling mashes up newly shot footage of Simz and dancers performing choreography in grand location with archival news footage and historical paintings. With the final video taking 5 days to edit.

In many ways the archive footage and painting shots, which this film resorts too are a result of of not having a lavish budget, but these images make for an interesting visual language. Against the dancers and grand locations the paintings create a meta narrative and the archive/stock footage gives the film agency. The budget limitations help create the creativity.

The outcome is a video which matches Simz' goal of, rather than just creating music for the charts, the video like the music is turbo changed wit the king of fury and potency, confusion and anxiety that make up the modern experience of being a black woman at this particular point in time. Its visceral art that recognises struggle and promotes change.

The video has amassed over 2.5 million views on YouTube, and recently was awarded with international best music video at the Kinsale Shark awards.