Chromeo Gets Robin Givens to Star in “Don’t Sleep” Video Featuring French Montana and Stefflon Don
The video was directed by Allie Avital.
Chromeo shares their video for “Don’t Sleep” starring 1990’s icon Robin Givens. The French Montana and Stefflon Don-assisted single is off the Canadian electro-funk duo’s most recent album Head Over Heels, which dropped in June. The video was directed by Allie Avital and captures Chromeo’s major musical influences and their crush on Givens.
“This video blends all our references from the past three decades: you have a 1980’s influenced funk song, with a 1990s icon — we had such crushes on Robin Givens in Boomerang when we were kids — with French and Stef anchoring it all in the present,” they said to HYPEBEAST. “And then visually, you have something that’s super cinematic, filled with contemporary dance and flex dancing, but absurd and humorous at the same time. The high brow, the low brow, the past and the present…that’s Chromeo.”
Of the video, Avital explains, “It’s lonely at the top. ‘Don’t Sleep’ is a 2018 satire for the age of dissatisfaction; the age of overstimulation and Tinder. Robin Givens plays a version of the ‘sad king,’ where the more pampered and entertained she is, the more disaffected she becomes. All the bulging biceps, sponge baths, and lap dances can’t cure her existential void.”
“Don’t Sleep” is produced by Chromeo and legendary R&B producer Rodney Jerkins and follows up the previous singles “Juice” and “Must’ve Been” featuring DRAM. Head Over Heels, the 12-song LP, was released via Big Beat/Atlantic and featured a guestlist that includes Jesse Johnson, Pino Palladino, The-Dream, Amber Mark, Onyx Collective, Raphael Saadiq and more.
Watch “Don’t Sleep” video above.