Self Esteem Collaborates With Moonchild Sanelly For New Single Big Man
Thursday, 20 June 2024
Written by Jon Stickler
Photo: Yana Van Nuffel
Self Esteem has shared a new single, Big Man.
The song features South African artist Moonchild Sanelly and marks Rebecca Lucy Taylor's first new music since her BRIT-Award and Mercury Prize-nominated 2021 album, 'Prioritise Pleasure'.
Offering dual vocals, the track is built on skittering programmed beats and synths, while lyrically exploring modern masculinity and gender roles. It arrives alongside a clever accompanying video that nods to Queen, directed by Piers Dennis and produced by Ayomide Alli and Precious Mahaga. Self Esteem said:
"Me and Moon wrote a song from the perspective of a good boyfriend. The ones that are just chill and secure so they just leave you to it. The ones that don't want a medal for doing the bins.
"The ones that see that you're working your tits off so they go and get yet another thing you’ve ordered and missed the delivery of from the post office. The ones that don’t take your success as a direct threat to their existence. To me this is real masculinity.
"We have both collaborated with Johan Karlberg on our records and I'm so grateful to him for introducing us, it was a joy to make this song together. In my head the video always needed to be an inverse I Want To Break Free - Piers Dennis executed this gorgeously cos he’s a fucking Big Man. Self Esteem 3 lez go."
"We were in the studio bonding HARD, having the deepest conversation about relationships and how it’s hard to be bold, loud female artists in a relationship," added Sanelly. "How you can be the baddest bitch on any stage, but if you have an insecure man he can't support your success as a woman. Instead of celebrating and supporting you, he sees your success as a personal attack and uses it to pull you down and make you feel bad. And we thought… what would it feel like... to be ourselves, doing what we do, and have a man who properly supported all that we are.
"So Rebecca and I wrote from the perspective of our ideal partner. The song is from the hypothetical perspective of a man who supports their partner and is happy for their woman. A man that is fully secure. A big man."
Big Man follows on from the former Slow Club multi-instrumentalist's recent feature on Becky Hill's single True Colours.
Self Esteem will appear as a special guest to Young Fathers at the Edinburgh band's hometown show in Stirling City Park on June 29.
Moonchild Sanelly will appear at Green Man festival in Brecon, Wales in August.
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