News: FKA Twigs Covers Complex Mag

FKA Twigs is the latest artist to cover Complex Mag where she talks with Cedar Pasori about her upcoming EP3 LP. Take a look at some of what she had to say below and read the full cover story on Complex.

FKA twigs is trying to channel a dead rapper through a krumping dancer named Dominant.

On a late winter night, deep in the ice-cold forest of Black Park about an hour outside of London, she’s the center of bustling activity under a heated white tent, a blur of mayhem, as dancers, producers, and assistants work around her while she does no fewer than four things at once. They include changing outfits, looking into a monitor, leaning into a walkie-talkie held to her face by an assistant, and—delivering a directive that betrays the delicacy of her soft voice and calm English accent, but with no shortage of intensity—summoning the spirit:

“Look into the camera,” she commands the dancer, Dominant, “like Tupac!”

“Keep a straight face for exactly five seconds, then krump. Like. Mad.”

We’re 16 hours into the video shoot for “Glass & Patron,” a song on FKA twigs’ forthcoming EP3, and controlled chaos reigns supreme. Due to her own airtight schedule, the shoot needs to be completed in a single day, and the video needs to be finished—as in, shot, edited, and ready to ship for the entire universe to see on the YouTube Music Awards—in less than seven days. But crucial scenes have yet to be shot. In two hours, the crew starts charging the production triple rate. The clock’s ticking.

This doesn’t escape the woman born Tahliah Barnett, who, at 27, has already been compared to everyone from Björk to Prince. Whose music, videos, and live performances yield copious critical accolades. And who, lately, has become the subject of a new kind of scrutiny (a reality hammered home by the paparazzi who somehow made it near the shoot’s remote location). But neither those distractions nor the reality of that ticking clock gets in the way of her checking in on, well, everything:

“Have the dancers been fed?” “Is Mikey”—her manager of seven years—“getting ‘Mother Creep’ mixed?” “I’m nervous, I don’t feel like I’ve seen enough in the monitor.” “Do they”—the dancers—“look tight?”

Whether it’s the request to channel Tupac, explaining how makeup should be applied, adjusting a steadicam angle, or calling for a split screen on the monitor, no detail goes unnoticed or untouched by twigs as she moves about the shoot, which barrels forward at the same breakneck velocity as the rest of her career—15 videos, two EPs, and her debut album, LP1, all in only two years. At this point, everyone else is just trying to catch up, and she’s the one wearing stilettos (which, somewhat magically, don’t sink into the damp ground beneath us).