LAFAWNDAH - TAN

What this video is

Released November 2015 as Lafawndah's first visual statement on Warp Records, 'Tan' arrives at the height of the global bass moment—when club-oriented diasporic artists were bridging experimental electronics with postcolonial identity politics. The title's invocation of Duke Ellington's dedication to the 'Suntanned Tenth of the Nation' situates the video in a lineage of Black and Brown cultural reclamation through…

Why it matters

A milestone in mid-2010s avant-global-pop, 'Tan' marked Lafawndah's debut on Warp Records and introduced a vision of diaspora-informed experimental club music to an international audience. Drawing on kizomba, zouk, dubstep, and grime, the video's restrained, auteur aesthetic prefigured the broader…

The director

Lafawndah (b. Yasmine Dubois) is a Paris-born, Egyptian-Iranian-English singer, songwriter, producer, and director. She co-founded the girl group NIDADA in Mexico City, attended the Red Bull Music Academy, and released her self-titled debut EP in 2014. She…