A nostalgic ode to friendship, the producer’s debut visuals celebrate care-free adolescence.

Portrush’s cbakl has made a name for himself as one of the country’s busiest producers. Having established himself as a force when it comes to beats and collaboration, he’s now pivoting to focus on his own solo career. For him, the next logical step in this evolution was visuals that would extend his world beyond the nostalgic soul samples and humanised percussion that is so pervasive in his music.

Teaming up with Belfast director Ruairi Bradley, they headed to Slieveanorra Mountain and Portush to shoot a three minute coming-of-age piece for ‘man she loves’. It comes after the pair met online and the video sees them double down on the sentimentality of the production, with the visuals leaning into the sense of community that was missing throughout the pandemic. Celebrating care-free adolescence and community, the video for ‘man she loves’ feels like a trip down memory lane for experiences you never had.

We caught up with cbakl ahead of the video to chat about how it came together.

What films were inspiring the creative direction of the video?

The movie ‘mid 90s‘, a movie about skaters directed by Jonah Hill was the main inspiration.
When me and Ruari Bradley first started planning the video I really emphasised that I wanted there to be a sense of friendship/community throughout & using that movie as the main inspiration really helped with that.

How did the video come together and where was it shot?

The beginning of the video is shot in the mountains up north, near where I’m from & the second part is shot on east strand beach in portrush, where I grew up and spent a lot of summer nights at. We used to host parties in the sand dunes at the beach in the video so it’ll always have a special place in my heart & to be able to incorporate that place into the video was great.

The main 3 actors in the video are my close friends from home as well so I feel its an accurate representation of who I am as a person & how I spent a lot of my time growing up.

What were your motivations for creating the video?

I’ve been releasing music for a long time but haven’t ever dropped a proper music video so I felt it was time to finally put out something that I really liked & my fans would enjoy. My main artistic motivation for the video was to begin creating a kind of cbakl ‘world’ through my videos, in a similar vein to the universe Tyler has created in his music videos, having a style that’s instantly recognisable is super important as an artist & I think it all tied together perfectly in the video.

Watch the video for ‘man she loves‘ below:

Previous Premiere: Rory Sweeney, Curtisy and Ahmed, With Love. explore the capital in ‘Men On A Mission.’

For forward-facing creatives seeking to reconnect, collaboration is key. That’s why Jameson is bringing together Irish talents from all sides of the music spectrum as part of their ‘Widen The Circle’ campaign. Book your tickets to watch Jameson’s St Patrick’s day event here. Enjoy Jameson responsibly. Visit www.drinkaware.ie for more information.