Tunde Adebimpe — Somebody New

JUL 01 2025 · 12:00

Tunde Adebimpe — Somebody New (2025) Director: Tunde Adebimpe Era: Mid-2020s Indie Art-Pop Revival (2025) - Solo debut era for TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe; retro-television surrealism meets contemporary Sub Pop indie sensibility A high-value archival document of Tunde Adebimpe's emergence as a fully autonomous solo visual artist. The self-directed video's synthesis of fever-dream retro-TV surrealism, puppet performance, and dance-pop choreography is formally distinctive and culturally resonant, situating it as a strong exemplar of 2025 indie art-pop visual language. Its deliberate lo-fi warmth and fast-cut kinetics reward close formal analysis. Context: Released in April 2025, 'Somebody New' is the fourth pre-release single from Tunde Adebimpe's debut solo album Thee Black Boltz on Sub Pop Records — his first fully independent creative statement outside of TV on the Radio, a band he has fronted for over two decades. The video arrives amid a broader moment of renewed visibility for Adebimpe, following TV on the Radio's live reunion after a five-year hiatus and Adebimpe's growing profile as an actor. The retro-television visual concept — consciously evoking a fever-dreamed 1982 television broadcast — situates the work in a lineage of 2020s art-pop music videos that mine analog broadcast culture for surrealist effect, while the inclusion of ballroom-adjacent glam aesthetics and puppet performance art nods to queer performance traditions. Director notes: Adebimpe self-directed the 'Somebody New' music video, released April 15, 2025, as the fourth pre-release single from his debut solo album Thee Black Boltz (Sub Pop, April 18, 2025). The video features Adebimpe as an old-school TV presenter/crooner surrounded by ebullient dancers, with a life-sized glam puppet as a key narrative prop. Adebimpe described his creative intent as: 'I'm positive I fell asleep on a couch with the TV on sometime in 1982 and fever dreamt this exact thing.' Multiple outlets described the visual as 'a trippy time capsule of neon, glitter and...stark raving puppet glam.' The self-directed approach is consistent with Adebimpe's broader multi-hyphenate practice; he also self-directed the album's lead single 'Magnetic.'