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Sudan Archives is the musical alias of singer, songwriter, violinist and producer Brittney Parks. The Cincinnati native, longtime LA resident has just shared the playful video for “Selfish Soul." The song appears on her recently released sophomore album, Natural Brown Prom Queen, out now on Stones Throw.
“Selfish Soul” is an ode to Black hair. Sudan says the song is “about women and the celebration of hair. It’s about representation of different hair textures and embracing all colors and textures of it.”
She adds: “I feel like there’s an American standard of what beautiful hair is, and I wanted to show in this video that’s not what all beauty is; to showcase different hairstyles and different types of women and their hair. I was inspired by India Arie's ‘I Am Not My Hair’, one of the first songs I heard about this subject. She talks about extensions and weaves and natural hair and nappy hair, and that she’s not her hair; she won’t conform to the comparisons that would come up if you had a weave or sew-in or natural hair or Afro – that doesn’t represent her.”
In the colorful video directed by Trey Lyons, Sudan plays her violin upside down on a pole and standing on a roof. She and her girlfriends dance in the mud, celebrating the beauty of hair in all different colors and textures.
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