We sat down with HELENA LEGEND during Miami Music Week to talk about her newest releases and fashion line. As it poured rain outside, we discussed what each track meant on her newest EP and about the vision behind her latest music video. Her beauty and brains are only one small fraction of what Legend has to share with us. Read below to get a up close and personal encounter into the eyes that are Helena Legend.
Tell us about No Explanations part 2
So No Explanations part 2 is obviously the follow up to No Explanations part 1, there's three more tracks and it was out probably about a month ago now on Ultra Music. So the first track is called 'Ghost Ya' featuring Sophie Hintze. She's a really talented young girl and she sounds fantastic on the record, it's really sassy.
The second track is called 'One Night' featuring Sade Serena who's actually from Miami, she's Jamaican. She is really talented and a very cool chick and we actually got a movie hook up for 'One Night' for the Baywatch movie. When that came through I was "OH MY GOSH" and it's apparently to Pamela Anderson running down the beach or whoever plays her obviously, but I just thought this is insane. I also think another offer came in the other day for another movie and I'm just thinking man yes this is so cool.
The third track is called 'You Don't Love Me' basically I did a big trap and bass reboot of the Dawn Penn classic 'No No No' which I love and that is basically just a big club weapon that I'm hammering in my sets
What was the inspiration for RU Feeling music video?
So the inspiration behind that was a theme called "Ego Death" which my genius director came up with. I actually flew my team over from the US to film it in Shanghai and we decided to film it there because I have actually been playing a lot in China. The market there is so huge and Shanghai is just an insanely impressive city to film in and it's all different ya know? There's a lot of films always filmed in Hollywood and we just thought it would be really cool for different audiences around the world to get a peak into China and Shanghai. Ego death is basically what it says, it's the loss of your ego and self identity in order to see things in a different way and this being in the city of Shanghai.
Did you go through that process of self discovery yourself prior to this video concept?
Yes, that was kind of how it was depicted in the film and the opening scene is me jumping into a swimming pool which is basically me releasing and loosing it all and letting yourself go. The music video is basically pretty much one big acid trip, it sort of takes you on a night of a lot of mischief.
Was it sort of cathartic creating that music video with that in mind?
It was more like one trip into cathartic release, it was filmed to look like it was one night but it was actually over the course of three days. I love the video and I think it came out really well. I had a great crew around me who really told the story well.
So diving into fashion, tell us about your fashion line.
So before I dived into music head on as a career I actually studied fashion in college and I thought I was going to go into fashion. That is where I thought my path was going to go, obviously it didn't. However I have always had a love fashion and obviously being a performer and being in music, I like to think fashion and music go hand and hand. I always have a clear vision of how I want to look like on stage and the branding, but I struggle to find clothes that fit me and look exactly how I want. This is where I started going in circles around the idea of why don't I make my own clothes so I can look exactly how I want.
Can you tell us about your new fashion line?
The line really depicts my personal style, it's going to be like luxury street wear. Very high end, nothing is being made cheap, even the zippers on the jackets cost $20, but I still want to make it accessible. I want to make them really well made, so you can expect them to last. They will all be made in Los Angeles and I am designing everything myself down to sourcing fabrics and working closely with the production house. I am about six samples in so far, I plant to make the first launch small and expand it larger as I grow. I obviously wear them all to my shows and you can see quite a lot of the pieces on my Instagram.
Where do you look for for fashion influence?
I love lots of brands like Alexander Wang, Daniel Patrick, Off White, Ventements, and Adidas. I want to take influence and inspiration from the brands that I love and wear. Fashion icons also play a huge influence like Rihanna, I worship her I just think she is the coolest person alive. I want to give her a piece to wear and if she wears it my life would be made, I would be beyond happy.
What can we expect from you later this year?
Well literally yesterday I got final confirmation for my next single and it is featuring Kirstin Maldonado from Pentatonix's which I am incredibly excited about, it's expected to be out early May. Look out for that one! After that one I just plan to keep firing out the singles.
What is the wildest or craziest thing you have done or witnessed?
Oh wow, you know how when you have so many you don't know what to chose? All of your wild nights sort of start to blend in together and you can't remember half of them. I do remember this one time I was in Ibiza, this was before my music career really started to take off, but I was still in Ibiza working on music. I was out one night with my friend at Pacha, 7am in the morning, this whole production team comes running in the club and they are like "omg we need two extra girls for this music video we are shooting". They continued with "its on a beach, like an hour away, we will pay you $500 each" and like at the time we were like "oh yeah $500" because we didn't have a lot of money out there. So it was like 7am, we had loads to drink and we looked at each other and both said "lets do it". So we jumped into the back of this jeep with all these people we didn't know and I do not at all advise kids at home to do this as it wasn't very smart of us at the time. We drove an hour to this random secluded beach and they were all "ok everyone needs to run into the ocean and take their tops off". We were both like "uhm" and they said the cameras wouldn't see anything because it's the silhouettes in the sun. At this point we were like ok let's do it and we did it.
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