Boombox Blitz: Bridesmen yearns for ‘Someone Who Loves Me’

Welcome to Boombox Blitz, an artist spotlight series showcasing overlooked singers, songwriters and musicians who are quietly taking over the world.

The struggle of humanity is to be loved, cherished, touched. It’s interconnectivity that charges our beings from the inside out, and when we don’t such an electrical shock, we crack and crumble under the emotional weight. Neo-soul newcomer Kenton Chen, going by Bridesmen, a name working as commentary on morality and navigating such a conventional world, doesn’t shy away from the ugly wash of tears. In fact, he celebrates the stains on his cheeks as an emblem and rite of passage in this life, as if those deep scars have transformed into his beauty marks. With an accompanying visual, which focuses the lens upon the song’s needlepoint sensitivity, Chen enlists a slew of his friends from all across cultures and identities to further shape and sharpen the message of wondrous acceptance.

On the video, directed by Jon Sams, Chen loses all inhibitions for the sake of clarity and one’s natural state of existence. “The idea behind having bare skin is pretty simple. Each person is beautiful in their own skin. I want to highlight that,” he says. “In our nakedness, we can’t hide behind any brand or gadget, and we have to face how we feel in our own bodies. When we come together at the end of the video, I want people to realize that we are on the this journey together”

The stunningly pristine and soothing clip stars a batch of empowered, young talent, including Ashley Rideaux, Eric B. Anthony, Risdon Roberts, Remy Ortiz, Daisha Graf and Frankie Kraft. The camera splices between each of their vantage points and allows the viewer to come to understand and bask in the universality of such anguish, through which we all much soldier in our lives eventually. In scattering such raw, unfiltered emotions into a windy firestorm of R&B, gospel and soul, Chen is not only making a statement about his own journey but that of the whole world. It’s an especially vital manifesto, scrawled on bare skin and weathered by the elements, for today’s generation, who have been all but abandoned and left in ruin. “There ain’t nothing original / Nothing that I can say that hasn’t been said before,” Chen confesses on the first stanza, setting the stage for a song completely heightened by its plainspokenness.

Chen is a second generation immigrant, and coming to accept his body and sexuality has been a particularly grueling task. “We hurt when we don’t understand each other and we hurt when we are unwilling to change. The best thing we can do is be ourselves within the context of what we were given,” he says. “I want people to know that as I have grown and matured as an artist and a human being, I’ve come to realize that my specific experiences of being gay and Asian are not particular to me. My life story reverberates far beyond my specificities, and anyone from any race or sexuality can empathize with the need to belong and be understood.”

Watch below:

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