BIA knows that relentless optimism can come across as corny or a script for a Better Help advertisement. But with her new single “Lights Out,” she found it imperative to string together words of encouragement to bring herself out of the dark. “When the light’s out/Still can see me shining, I’m a lighthouse/Lights out, are you ready?” she asks on the chorus. As the rapper takes Rolling Stone behind the scenes of the music video shoot for record, she shows just how ready she is to embrace positivity.
“I wanted something different. I wanted to come with something that was positive and more uplifting,” BIA explains. “I felt like the world is so dark, and it can be such a dark place. So, I wanted to have a song that brings light. It just shines the light on the world. I feel like this song is that.”
Director Chandler Lass adds: “I just wanted to play with light and all the different meanings of bringing light into a dark space, whether that’s literally or figuratively. Now we’re just doing all kinds of fun stuff here today, playing with a bunch of lights.”
Lass’ VFX team assisted in bringing the prevailing vision to life, placing BIA against the backdrop of a shining city from the roof of a tall building. Hooked up to wires, the rapper delivers some verses while floating in mid-air. Joining her in the video is JID, her collaborator on “Lights Out,” who joins her on the bridge to rap: “I’m harvesting painful thoughts in my brain/I’m looking for a change, I need it right now/I dropped my anchor near a dock and found a lighthouse/I know it’s dark, but you can see me.”
“The inspiration behind my verse was just the vibe that was already set. So I kind of just tried to add my flavor into it, with a twist,” JID explains. “It’s just super cool. It was different. And then BIA is just an amazing artist and then we tapped in. We respect each other’s artistry. So it was really simple.”
JID cycles through three ensembles in the “Lights Out” video, including a vintage Dior outfit and a slick Heloit Emil look. BIA also approached the visual as a chance to lean into her fashion sweet spots. For a portion of the shoot, she’s anchored with statement jewelry pieces and jewel-encrusted nails. “I love hardware,” she says. “Anything hardware, sign me up.”
And when it comes to the clothing itself, the rapper says she loves a look pulled straight from the runway. “I love a good runway piece, I love color, and I love texture, and I love pattern,” she says, introducing a colorful, wrapper-like dress from Marine Serre’s Spring/Summer 2024 collection, originally debuted on the runway by Teyana Taylor. “It’s really hard, usually, for stylists and my own girls to get me in color. So when I saw that dress, I was like, this is perfect.”
From the studio to the runway to the video shoot, “Lights Out” took shape just as BIA hoped it would. “I feel like this treatment was made for this song. This song was made for this treatment. But I didn’t want it to be a corny lighthouse thing. I didn’t want it to be like, ‘Oh, I’m in the ocean, there’s a lighthouse, somebody come save me with the light,’” she says. “I wanted it to be symbolic, and I wanted it to be special.”