Musician, actor, dancer, never stopping spirit Leïti Sène is releasing T-REX, the first single of his upcoming solo album; going back to his roots all by himself after producing and performing music with SamxSen –and Sam Davies– and Cutemobb, the music label he created just a while ago and where an umbrella of projects is blossoming, Leïti talks about the need he felt to tell his own story and the idea behind of it all. And to shape all that, we are releasing the music video for T-REX directed by Miguel Morillo, and starring Leïti himself and performer and choreographer Candela Capitan in a very eye candy piece of two worlds colliding, where reality and dream go hand by hand and we are welcome to Leïti Sène’s super active mind -he has also been part of ÉLITE cast as an actor and seems to be following whatever guides his heart. To learn more about the idea, the project, the music video, which has been his most ambitious one when it comes to production, we talk with Leïti himself and director Miguel Morillo on having a dream, a career, a lovelife and the most primary and animal part of ourselves.
Leïti, T-REX is the first single of your upcoming album, which you are releasing after creating your own music label Cutemobb and the Cute Tapes project, and prior to that you also worked alongside Sam Davies in SamxSen. How is this back to solo project feeling? Was there something to tell?
Leïti: The truth is that I suppose there is something to tell, there are a lot of things in an aesthetic and message level that I wanted to start defining as Leïti and not as SamxSen or Cutemobb. I guess that is because I am becoming more of an adult (laughs). I am 22 now. It is about that as well, consolidating all these years of adolescence, of having tried everything, of doing what I’ve always wanted to do and focus on my project.
Leïti and Miguel. In the T-REX music video, you talk about the concept of music and passion and how they are keeping him apart from the person he loves. How did the idea of the video come up and how was the creative process?
Leïti: The concept for the video mostly came from the song itself. I wrote the song and expressed to Miguel how that was the feeling that I pretty much wanted to convey, as my life has been a bit about that, my passion for music or my project have always been bigger than any girl I have been with and that has always been a problem. Starting up with that initial idea, we started to work with Miguel and to shape it all.
Miguel: Every time I direct a music video I try to understand the message that the artist wants to project whit their lyrics in all its depth, and with Leïti’s, with whom I had previously worked, it is always so easy. Leïti is so straightforward about what he wants to tell in his songs. In our first meeting, he explained to me with every detail what his idea was with this track and my mission has been to translate all these ideas into images from my own imagery.
Are vocation and love two incompatible things?
L: Not at all, they are super compatible, but the truth is that the lowest the frequency they vibrate at… Right? Because if there’s a 100% of you focused on your vocation then… But I guess there are times and times in life. There are some moments when you need to have a stable and solid love… To be able to be more focused on your vocation. I think everything depends on the person and the timing.
M: Honestly both vocation and love are a true folly and so similar that they are probably incompatible on some occasions. On this occasion though, love can beat it all, and it ends up as a triumph in our history.
In the music video, the career, friends and most intimate desires of Leïti appear all mixed up in a delirious way, in an imaginative world, in a dreamy space. What was the intention behind the video? I understand that summing up Leïti’s life pieces into a space that could be his own mind.
L: Yes, exactly that, a rain of images of what my mind could be. What could happen to me in a dream connecting everything: the woman I like, the other women that are distracting me, my work, my fears… And having it all being shown. How I end up transformed and how it all transforms me into a T-Rex.
M: That’s right, we have set two different worlds, one of them being more real and tangible though certainly surrealist and one completely dreamy, that it indeed represents the emotions and sensations of the main character.
Miguel, in the promotional pictures we can identify reddish tones, intimate lightning, a bed in the darkness. What was the inspiration to create this universe?
M: Well as I said before the whole idea has been created trying to reinforce that idea of surrealism. To work in these two worlds I’ve had an amazing team with me that has joined me in the whole process. Working with Carlos Feher, who was the director of photography, we have created luminous atmospheres that really respond to the storytelling. Carlos is always so into what he is doing, he gives it all, he helps me a lot, he is amazing. For the set designing and building, Dani Flamarique and Favela have been my team, they are art directors with outstanding talent and vision who have made these worlds possible. For the styling, which is also super important to help differentiate these two realities, the costume designer Guillermo Álvarez and Antonio Delgado have performed impeccable work.
At some point, Leïti becomes a panther and keeps getting away from the people who he loves outside his family and his reality. To Leïti, why is the panther the symbol of your music label, and to Miguel and Leïti, how did you decide that the animal element made him closer to the primary and inevitable instinct, music?
L: The idea of transforming into a panther came from the lyrics “con tu amiga me convierto en T-Rex” – “with your friend I become a T-Rex”. And that is about it, how this lifestyle keeps you apart from the people you love and you end up becoming a beast, a panther, and a beast in different ways: of sex, of money and maybe not of love and trust. That is perhaps the metaphor, that I become that because I spend all my day thinking about money, about my work and somehow you become an animal and you lose sensitivities.
M: I really wanted to represent the physical form of that irrational and animal part that we all have and that is guiding the attention of the main character. We studied transforming Leïti into different animals and we finally understood that the panther was the perfect fit for his essence. The creation for the mask was by Nino del Pozo, Pia Quim and De Maria, artists whom I deeply admire. The prosthesis has been created in Madrid in their Medusa Creative Studio, and for the shooting Pia came to Barcelona to make the magic happen over Leïti’s face.
Leïti, given your trajectory, it seems like you follow your instinct and you always go for whatever inspires you. Is there something that is coming soon that might surprise us?
L: I actually have a couple of fashion projects now, which are in the Cutemobb bubble. I am looking forward to seeing how they turn out and see how I can work as a creative director, what I can offer and if I am really good for that… And there we are.
LISTEN HERE: https://orcd.co/leitisene_t-rex
