British singer songwriter Self Esteem has released a new collaborative single titled ‘Big Man’ with South African Moonchild Sanelly. The new track explores “the nuances of modern masculinity and gender roles” and is released alongside a music video which demonstrates this. This release is Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s first original release since her mercury and BRIT award nominated album ‘Prioritise Pleasure’.
The song sees the pair singing “from the perspective of a good boyfriend” over an electronic beat, praising men who who are fine with doing tasks in the background of their significant other without complaining or expecting praise. The video released to accompany the song shows this with Self Esteem and Moonchil Sanelly doing chores around the home, such as cleaning the bath with a toothbrush, whilst wearing big David Byrne esc suits. The video was directed by Piers Dennis who said via Instagram “Rebecca said, “We need to make the Self Esteem version of ‘I Want to Break Free’ video!” I said, “Let’s go!”” which is shown by the hoovering throughout the video.
Talking about where the ideas for the song came from, Self Esteem said that “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.”
Speaking on how the pair came to meet she adds “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.”
She added that she wanted the video “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.”
Moonchild Sanelly added that it can be hard to be in a relationship as a female singer: “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. 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.”
She continued saying that her and Taylor wanted to imagine what it would be like to have a supportive partner: “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.” She said they wrote the song “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.”
