HIP Picks: New Videos from Keyawna Nikole, The Wheel, and more | 9/22/2023

New artist The Wheel (Avram Brown) will release his self-titled debut album on October 6 via Lakeshore Records. In anticipation of the release, he’s shared the music video for “Coyote Mask”, a kaleidoscopic, technicolor visual. The video was directed by Karl Whinnery and Evan Gandy, and stars The Wheel (Avram Brown) alongside Ji Tanzer, Benjamin Wright, Scott Macdonald, and Scott Jeffries.

As their name might suggest, Black Rock Candy creates songs with catchy, memorable choruses with a hard rock edge. The Southern California quartet have landed two songs on-air at 95.5 KLOS and gone on tour. Filmed at Break Room LA, the “Trouble” video (cinematography by Eric Crain, produced/directed by Alli Parra) shows the band members smashing gear.

Trailblazing as a female rapper of Indian descent, East Coast pop-rap phenom Neha has Indian Classical Music training, and a love of hip-hop legends like Biggie, Wu-tang, and Nicki Minaj. “Retail Therapy” explores what’s left of exes when they’re gone, and its video (directed by Melvin Pacheco) is a silky smooth vignette into Neha’s New York life.

Rock singer Cleo Alexandra has taken Men at Work’s “Who Can It Be Now” and reimagined it to be disturbed, ferocious, and artfully damaged, paired with vocals by Rick Springfield. The music video (directed by Cleo Alexandra herself) is similarly haunted, payingh omage to ’80s and ’90s horror movies.

Throughout her illustrious, decades-long career, Ute Lemper has built a breathtaking musical resume: translating her music into dance with Pina Bausch; breathing life into songs written for her by diverse artists such as Tom Waits, Phillip Glass, Elvis Costello, and Nick Cave; claiming the Laurence Olivier Award for her performance in Chicago on the West End before taking Broadway by storm; reimagining the classic works of Pablo Neruda, Bertolt Brecht, Charles Bukowski, and others into song. “In My Flame” is the most recent single and video from her album Time Traveler, and its video uses AI to draw the story to our world.

The son of two musically-inclined Tennessee churchgoers, country and gospel singer-songwriter Greg Moses was born to sing. Created in conjunction with friend and frequent collaborator Mike Anderson, the music video for “Good Ole’ Country Raisin'” shows a deeper look into the life that blossomed from his upbringing in the bucolic Madisonville, TN.

Alt-indie pop artist Denise Marsa has performed in top venues alongside the likes of The Ramones, The Talking Heads, and Blondie. Get to know her insightful songwriting and remarkable vocals on her debut album, SELF, and her sophomore release LIVE FOREVER, and get ready for her new album, PIVOTAL, due out early next year.  “Sanctuary”, her latest, is a modern feminist pop-rock ballad for the ages, paired with a video directed by oft-collaborator Bill Westmoreland.

International pop singer-songwriter ViennaCC (Heinz Riemer) is proud to rep his Austrian hometown, though he also has musical roots in Britpop and poets like Bob Dylan. “When the Cats Come Out” is the closing track on his EP Screenshots, released in September 2023. The video, directed by Riemer himself, takes a walk through city nighttime scenes of sumptuous splendor, as cats gradually turn into midnight partygoers.