I came across DMV artist Krystle Maria through a random dive into my DMs. I’d seen glimpses of her stuff here and there on, like, Elevator. However, I’d never featured her on SOTB (my bad). A few days ago, she submitted the visuals to her latest track, “Melanin,” and I happened to see them in the midst of the insanity that is my Twitter inbox. Seriously, if you saw some of the stuff in there, you’d be afraid of what bigger writers’ inboxes look like.. I asked her to submit to my email, mainly because I like to keep tabs of my submissions that way, and here we are.

Let’s get into the track.

I love that it’s pro-Black Girl Magic without being pandering. It’s a very syrupy track that preaches loving the skin you’re in, yes. However, it’s also got some turn-up vibes and you can dance to it a bit as well. Overall, it tries to accomplish a lot in its short time and mostly does so pretty well. The visuals are why you should be here for this one, though, as they feature Black women of all shapes and sizes embracing their Blackness and just vibing with the track en masse. It’s sexy without being sexual and profound without being oblivious to its target audience.

All in all, it’s a beautiful thing to me and one that makes me say check out the visuals and support dope music in all its forms.