New Haven’s Mad Hatter drops “Blk Teenz” video w/Wisdom.
Then the bubbly groove starts, a hook that’s more than enough to keep things moving for a song. We enter the TV to find Mooncha on a Technicolor throne flanked by cartoon clouds. She’s a Mad Hatter for the 21st century. “I’m alone again,” she sings, “and thankfully, I’m faithful — to myself.” The set could be anywhere, but it’s really two places. One is a basement in Lexington, Mass. The other place is right in New Haven — in Neville Wisdom’s studio on Whalley Avenue, in Westville.
“It’s a story about working hard and getting things done, but saving something for yourself and being proud of yourself,” said the New Haven-based Mooncha, of “Blk Teenz.” “Other videos” — and she has done quite a few — “have been more story oriented. With this one I’m communicating more abstractly.”
But in another sense, it’s not abstract at all. “It’s all about self-love,” Mooncha said.
To make the video Mooncha enlisted Hartford-based filmmaker Director Chase. “I hit him up on Instagram” in April, she said, explaining that she wanted to make a video for the song “Blk Teenz.” She started by giving him the breakdown of the story and her ideas for the concept of the videos. She already knew what the video should look like, a visual extension of the sound of the song. That, Mooncha said, surprised Chase a little.
“Most of the people that I do videos for don’t have a concept,” Mooncha recalled Chase saying. “In what world would I ever do a video and not be involved in the concept?” she added.
“I started out with a big plan,” Mooncha continued. They found Jaina Cipriano, a set designer in Lexington, Mass. “This is the first time I’ve gone that deep for a visual, but it was more than worth it,” she said. Cipriano put together the set, which Mooncha described as inspired perhaps in equal doses by Pee Wee’s Playhouse and The Wiz.
“Didn’t they do an amazing job on that room? I didn’t want to leave,” Mooncha said. They shot a lot of footage there in Lexington, then returned to New Haven to finish the job in Neville Wisdom’s studio and storefront. Mooncha connected to Wisdom through Ashley Raymond, “a phenomenal photographer, a phenomenal model … they work hard to make opportunities, and they share those opportunities.”
“New Haven is so good. People will help you out,” Mooncha added. A few friends helped her out to finish the shoot in May. Then it was time to edit, and that’s where the piece took shape, as Mooncha winnowed her grand plan to its essence. “I was like, ‘let’s chop it. Let’s chop it down,’” she said. “Stop being so Beyoncé and be a little more Solange.”
The song and the album it’s a part of, NRG, represented a turning point for her. She had ended a relationship earlier, and found herself examining her identity in the process. “Am I even still queer if I’m not dating a person?” she asked herself. She looked for an answer within herself, and found one.
On previous songs, “I talk a lot about the sentiment of longing and loneliness and love and validation, and I wanted to do it for real this time,” she said. So the songs on NRG are much more about self-validation, about looking within. “You can’t give energy if your own energy isn’t right,” she added.
Mooncha said that she is developing the album further into a play that she plans to stage in October. “It’s going to be at the State House, because that’s the crew — they are fly and amazing, and they trust me,” she said. “If we do really well maybe we can take it to Long Wharf,” she half-joked, but “I’ll do it in the middle of Whalley if I have to. I’ll do it at Crown Fried Chicken if I have to.”
Most of all, she’s getting ready to share the finished product with the Elm City and, hey, the world. “I’m at a place where I truly love myself,” Mooncha said. “That’s the first time ever that I’ve said that and meant it.”
To listen to an earlier interview with Mooncha conducted by Ifeanyi Awachie that aired on WNHH’s “Northern Remedy,” click on the file below.
