Labrinth Turns Madness Into Magic in ‘S.W.M.F.' Video
Labrinth locks in on his latest single 'S.W.M.F.' The record arrives alongside an intense music video directed by Brendan Walter. The visual, which finds the musician coated in glitter in some scenes and slipping into madness in others, captures him in moments of inner turmoil that give way to bolstered resilience and personal victory.
'S.W.M.F. is about being the protagonist of your own misery and coming out alive and better for it,' Labrinth shared in a statement. 'I've been down that lonely road/I've been there and back for sure/Better give me my flowers for it/And I've been walking that tightrope/Pray I keep my head screwed on when the world decapitate,' he raps on the record. 'Yeah, I've been feelin' sorry for myself/Yeah, I've been too sorry for myself/Pity got me locked in/I've been way too hard on myself/I've been way too hard/Time to spring back on some king shit.'
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Fitting to its release date, 'S.W.M.F.' is an acronym for 'Star Wars, motherfucker,' the refrain Labrinth chants during the outro of the song. In the first verse, he spits: 'I'm a sinner, I'm a martyr/But I own it like a god, here we go/Watch me Luke Skywalker/Tell them bitches I'm alive, here we go.'
'S.W.M.F.' marks the first solo release from Labrinth since his third studio album, Ends & Begins, arrived in 2023. In the lead-up to the single, the musician shared a series of Instagram posts teasing his conceptual approach to this new era, all of which end in the reveal of an orange logo and the term 'Cosmic Opera.'
'I don't know shit about classical,' he says in one clip. 'I just know how to copy it. It's like Rolling Stones fucking with Muddy Waters. They didn't know nothing about the blues. But they fuck with the sound.' In other, he states: 'I'm coming home. I know it. I'm coming home. I'll be home soon.'
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