Michael Kiwanuka – Cold Little Heart
2017 · Directed by David Helman
1.7M Likes
Best comments
1.“This is my neighbor's favorite song, whether they like it or not.”
More comments
- 2.“Big Little Lies has such a beautiful soundtrack, and it all starts with this gem.”
- 3.“Sometimes you have to go to the coldest, darkest part of your soul to find the light switch.”
The story
Michael Kiwanuka's Cold Little Heart takes its sweet time. The album version runs close to ten minutes, a slow-building soul epic that opens his second album, Love & Hate, made with producers Danger Mouse, Inflo and Paul Butler. Pitchfork called it the best song on the record. If it sounds familiar, you probably heard it over the opening credits of HBO's Big Little Lies.
The video, directed by David Helman for Partizan, stars Lakeith Stanfield, fresh off Get Out and FX's Atlanta. Helman said the story is rooted in grief: the loss of a father figure, seen through the eyes of a young teenager. Two young men drift around an empty suburban town waiting for a storm to wash things clean, while flashbacks of the good, bad and sad family days bleed into the present. Cloudy skies, cracked pavement, wet eyes, rainy night drives. They shot it in Los Angeles.
Not much happens, and that's the point. The song wrestles with pride and shame, and Helman lets Stanfield carry all of it on his face. The video has passed 250 million views. Grief rarely looks this good, and it never hurries.
