Hi, my name is Lolé Vietro. Growing up in London as a 3rd generation Italian, my heritage is super important to me and my identity. Exploring Italian artists over the years and realising how much Jazz has influenced Italian music has really helped me step into my soul and sound searching.
I want my sound to reside in the space between – the crossover of Italian flavour with contemporary London RnB Jazz. With this new approach, it’s only fitting that my artist name shall reflect me stepping into my true self, as Lolé Vietro. Since I can remember my mum used to play R&B/soul from En Vogue to House to Drum and bass. My house was always blaring music, it carried me.
For my new single “Somebody Like You“, the process started when I was recording ideas into my voice notes, singing along to a splice sample during lock down feeling quite lacking in my self love. I met up with Q (Maverick Quest) after the first lockdown, and played him what I had recorded, he was instantly like, “leave it with me“.
After talking concepts about rooting into my Italian heritage and his latin jazz influences, he mastered up this incredible Bossa nova twist. We instantly lost our sh*t. In addition to his production, Maverick also recorded his backing vocals, which provided balance and helped elevate the vibe of the track. Maverick Quest is signed to BBE Music and is one half of the neo-soul duo Sons of the Sun.
The video was directed by Jess Journo, an incredible director with a dance history of 20 years and featured work with GQ, plus backing from Familia Production House.
It was choreographed by the talented Mikey Boats, who also choreographed my first video “Thoughts of Us” and has worked with some of the hottest artists such as J Balvin and Arlo Parks and featured in Love Magazine, with styling by Natalie Wilkins who owns the clothing brand Mutzi, which is the iconic piece I am wearing during the video. One of her pieces also featured in Dua Lipa’s “Love Again” video.
From a moodboard idea that I presented to Jess, who then transformed it into this beautiful visual, our concept blossomed into La Dolce Vita meets fluidity. It all came together so naturally, with Mikey’s movement and Natalie’s styling combined with Jess also being an Italian woman there was a mutual appreciation of extra delving into our roots.
The shoot day was the most amazing day, I felt like I was on cloud nine and really tapped into my divine femininity. The song is about self love and finding somebody like you, and after months in lockdown where I was losing that feeling of self love, it all just flooded back to me and I felt so empowered to be working with such an incredible team of creatives – there were a lot of powerful females heading the video so it felt extra powerful.
It was the best feeling having my nonna and my mama in the video too, during the scene at the table my mum and I held hands and this wave of energy seeped through us – it was so surreal.
Everyone had their own role to play throughout the day and it was amazing watching it all happen and come to life. Being involved in the process from the beginning was a really incredible feeling. After seeing the final edit of the video, I couldn’t hold back my tears! I got this wave of nostalgia from the day that was so powerful.
Watch the video for “Somebody Like You” here!
