One of the most exciting voices coming out of the UK right now, Grace Carter has unleashed a new music video for her single, ‘Riot’. The singer took inspiration from the murder of Eric Garner in 2014 at the hands of the police when writing the track, shown in the chorus where she sings, ‘you started a riot / I’ll never be silent /excuse me if I get angry, it’s my right / you started a riot tonight.’
Carter has enjoyed stratospheric success in 2023, coming off a European headline tour and a sold out performance at Lafayette. The video also sees Priya Ahluwalia make her directorial debut, with the London designer also providing Carter a custom look.
Speaking on the video, Ahluwalia states:
“Directing this video was such an honour. I love the song and felt such an emotional connection to it. The song is about community and how in the face of adversity, community is vital for Black people as we come together to battle against hardships. Community is also an important factor for us to be able to enjoy our own lives and have joy in the day to day, despite the hardships. This is something that is so important to me and my work so I felt Grace and I really connected on wanting to communicate this in the video. I wanted to create something where we celebrated this sense of community but also represented the rawness and emotion that Riot is rooted in.
It was also an honour to contribute to Grace’s wardrobe and create a customised Ahluwalia look for her for the video. I can’t thank Grace and her team enough for the opportunity to create this really special piece of work, it’s a project that I will cherish forever.”
Carter also added about the track:
“Riot is a song about injustice and specifically the emotional and physical injustices that black people face daily. It’s a song that touches on the literal meaning of the word but more for me, it is about the emotional turmoil and the internal riot so many black people experience. It was written in 2014 about the murder of Eric Garner but the sad reality is that the lyrics of the song have constantly been reinforced and made relevant time and time again by systemic racism and police brutality; the horrific incident surrounding the murder of George Floyd further illustrates this. The song is about something very painful and traumatising but it’s also really important to me to represent black joy, power and community. Music has always been a vehicle for me to speak about things that are important to me and this song is me using my voice and doing what I can do to spread a message”.
