Premiere: Laura Mvula - She

Birmingham-based singer-songwriter Laura Mvula is fast becoming something of a phenomenon, and her soulful ballad She is the reason behind it. Since the song was dropped a few weeks ago, the clamour to sing Laura’s praises has been growing at a feverish pace – just this week, The Invisible’s Dave Okumu revealed that he’s a fan.

Now, the song that launched a thousand blog posts has a suitably beautiful, sun-soaked video to accompany it. Director Damian Weilers took the video shoot to his hometown of Montagu in South Africa, where a small gospel choir and a smiling child brought the soaring essence of Laura’s song to life. Watch the video exclusively at Dummy, and read Laura’s own words about the video below.

Laura Mvula: “Montagu is an incredibly beautiful and mountainous place. We shot the video in a tiny derelict church; such an amazing contrast to its vast surroundings. I felt at peace the whole time we were there… like I could just bathe in the heat and the quiet.

I had a sense that something incredible and painful was going to happen after we awkwardly shook hands with the choir and we walked in to the church together. The women spontaneously broke into song and broke my heart. I wept uncontrollably as they sang over us with loud and weathered voices. They finished and I stared at the ceiling feeling cleansed and embarrassed.

Damian is a gentle genius. He speaks so softly he almost whispered his ideas whenever we talked about the shoot. I felt like he might have cared even more about the song than I. We actually shared very few words but I felt like I could totally trust him. He seemed to have deep, genuine respect for the song, Montagu and the women we were working with. It was such a privilege to work with him.”

RCA will release Laura’s debut EP ‘She’ on the 18th November 2012.