Lava La Rue is back with queer anthem “G.O.Y.D.”

The musician and DIY icon talks HUNGER through their 2020 so far and premieres her new video exploring love in times of isolation.

A true multi-hyphenate talent, musician, singer and artist, Lava La Rue has been making music since the tender age of 16. Now, the 22-year-old has a coveted COLORS session under her belt and has consistently gained critical acclaim since the release of debut “Widdit”. Today, they’ve returned with their first dose of new music since 2019’s STITCHES mixtape. Entitled “G.O.Y.D.” the ethereal song sees Lava and a mystery vocalist musing on the treasured first moments of falling in love with the girl of your dreams, all over a dreamy and hypnotic Vegyn beat.

The accompanying visual is a DIY fan-focused celebration. A one-time audio-visual project which gave fans the change to get involved with the ‘summer of love 2.0’ — a project that explores love in a time of isolation. Giving back to the community, proceeds from “G.O.Y.D.” will be going to For Our Sibs, a collective that centres Black trans, non-binary, GNC and intersex folks.

Below, we get the exclusive first look at Lava’s new video and hear about their experience of 2020 and her musical journey so far. 

 

How has 2020 been for you so far?

Like a crossover episode of Black Mirror and the third season of UK Skins… 

 

Literally same here. What do you think the wider impact on youth culture has been? Some people think that 2020 has produced another “lost generation”…

As this year progressed, I found people radicalising their views whilst forced to isolate from society. The pandemic made people reflect on their own beliefs as everything unfolded politically and I saw a whole generation go out to protests and turn their focus to more community-based projects.  As clubs and venues shut down, I noticed lots of Londoners turned to free party culture, street raves and psychedelics at home.

 

How does all this tie in with your summeroflove2.0 project?

These changes made me think of the past summer of love movements in 1960s San Francisco and 1980s Britain and I noticed how subcultures always arise as a result of huge sociopolitical change. Something like a global pandemic could really start that. So fast forward in 2020 with all the queers and youth coupling up over lockdown and making DIY art, I thought it would be amazing to put out a song, visual and zine to document this time period. A whole new breed of the past summer of loves. A summer of love 2.0.

 

Let’s talk about G.O.Y.D. I hear it’s been a long time in the making…

The song is about the girl of my dreams and a long-distance relationship. It was originally written back in 2018 with Vegyn on the production and a close friend of mine. We performed the original version at the iconic London gay club “Heaven” but as the 2020 pandemic hit the lyrics about being in a FaceTime relationship became all too real and a bit of an anthem for all my queers (myself included) who are currently in long-distance relationships. This song is my everyday life right now.

 

It sounds like this new single marks a big change in direction for you — how would you describe your musical journey up until now?

All my projects up until now have felt like free-flowing thought, telling my origin story. I’ve never really stuck to a genre, it was all about creating sounds to paint a narrative. But at the end of last summer, I started making this new project and I really wanted to start pushing myself musically to see what I was capable of. I wanted to start making songs that sounded like classics but also artistically captured how fluid I really feel. For the first time, I’m making music that I’d listen to every day. I can’t wait for the world to hear it.

 

We can’t wait to hear it either! You’ve been in the music industry for a while now, what do you think should be done to change it for the better?

The people who work high up in music — I’m talking the executive big bosses — should be just as diverse as all of the femmes, black people and queer folks out here making the hits! It’s definitely a boys club up there in the music industry when you look behind the scenes. There are so many talented womxn, queers and POC who smash the music business as creative consultants, managers, agents, PRs…yet they’re thoroughly underrepresented the higher you get.

 

Exactly!

So many black artists who are signed to major labels have complained to me about being in creative meetings and them getting it all wrong and I’m like; “duh these are all old white dudes.” Please sprinkle a bit more seasoning and switch up the teams to be people who have actually experienced the same culture as your artists and maybe they’ll get it right more. I’m just very lucky to even have an incredible predominately female team because I can really see the difference. There are just certain things I don’t have to explain and I’m glad.

 

Last question now: what are your plans for the future?

For someone to write me a Wikipedia  that says I invented psychedelic RnB.

 

Check out the video for “G.O.Y.D” premiering below. You can catch Lava on socials here and donate to For Our Sibs here