Photo Courtesy on Onbloom

Onbloom has already left her mark on 2020 with her debut EP The Star, which dropped over the summer. Filled with downtempo, soulful R&B crooning – music to soundtrack summer nights filled with long drives, low lights, and wisps of smoke – she was able to make a space for herself among local R&B singers as Boston’s spiritual successor to quiet storm artists like Sade. She’s also popped up as a guest on the work of fellow artists, like Arkh Zeus‘ 2020 LP The Tensai IV.

Now Onbloom is back with a brand new single and video for a track called “Self,” directed by Daymian Mejia. Shot in black and white, it features the singer eating pancakes, lying back to smoke a cigarette, and holding a photo shoot with friends. It’s a classy girls-day-in set in a lightly furnished space, like a short French film that wants to show what young women do when there’s not much else available but to stay inside and turn records over. 

The lackadaisical mood of the video fits the song’s soft satisfaction of the self. The images may give an illusion of some kind of boredom: gentle dancing, flower-holding, joint-smoking in a bathroom. But Onbloom is misleading us; “Self” is about finding simple contentment in one’s immediate surroundings. “Because you feel no threat,” she sings, “because you feel complete.”

Watch the video for Onbloom’s “Self” below, and stream the single on Soundcloud.