Lola Leon T Shirt

Perhaps realizing that she wasn’t tapping into the full potential of her nepo baby powers with an “off-the-beaten-path” stage name like Lolahol, Lourdes Leon has now embraced being “Lola Leon” for “T Shirt” (not to be confused with SZA’s “Shirt”), her first single on a major label. Specifically, for Atlantic Records, which is, incidentally, owned by Warner Music Group—an entity near and dear to Madonna’s heart, considering she recently re-signed with Warner Records in time to release this year’s Confessions II (with 2019’s Madame X marking her last album for Interscope).

But apart from that correlation, Leon seems intent to separate herself from her mother for this new era. Because, while her Go EP might have been decidedly “trip hop”-oriented, it still had all the hallmarks of Madonna’s fundamental “weird art kid” vibes from the days of her pre- and early fame career. Under the banner of “Lola Leon,” however, the daughter of pop royalty is starting to come more noticeably into her own. Maybe it just took the majority of her twenties to do so.

Even if what she’s landed at now still has some later era Madonna qualities to it. Like how there’s a noticeable mumbling quality to Leon’s voice (in the style of “God Control”), particularly in the opening verse, “I enjoy your white t-shirt chest/Where I rest my face/I feel restless when you leave my home/I don’t care that you don’t even love yourself/But you tortured me.”

Leon’s casual shrugging off of her t-shirt-wearing object of desire’s lack of self-love is in contrast to, say, Madison Beer’s “complexity” (from Locket), during which she sings, “How can I expect you to love me when you don’t even love yourself?/How can I expect you to want me when you want nothing for yourself?” Leon should probably be asking herself the same questions, but instead prefers to demand, via the chorus, “What do you want?/Unsure if you wanted me/Untangle me/What do you want?”

Such wistful ruminations made manifest in the Eric K. Yue-directed video. Even though Yue is more known, at this point, for his cinematography (with his latest credit being the highly anticipated Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma), he did have his occasional forays into directing music videos. But that was, as he himself mentioned on his Instagram story over ten years ago now, with his last video being for Kelala (namely, “Rewind”). So it would seem he doesn’t come out of music video directing retirement for just anyone. Which means Leon really must have “it” for him to do so. Either that, or he’s one step closer to being the DP on the Madonna biopic.

Opening on scenes of Leon holding, what else, a white t-shirt in her hands as she alternates between folding clothes and lying down on her bed, there’s an undeniably “personal,” “intimate” quality to the way these scenes are shot. Almost as if Yue had turned to the 1998 Vanity Fair photoshoot of Lourdes and her mother by Mario Testino. Whatever the “inspiration,” it’s apparent that Lola herself has been inspired by her own mother’s near obsessive love of New York, with Yue also incorporating shots of Leon (in a white tank top that makes her look a lot like Madonna during her 1998 VMAs performance of “Ray of Light”) framed against the backdrop of the cityscape as she leans against the railing of her balcony (clearly, a mark of “luxuriousness” in a place where apartments barely come with a kitchen and bathroom, let alone a balcony).

The video then starts to move down into the street, with Leon appearing in a hoodie as she walks around at night. At the one-minute-thirteen-second mark, there’s a brief montage of Polaroid photos of Lola and some of those she holds dear—the first indication of this video starting to pivot to something more familial rather than romantic. Even though the lyrics indicate the person she’s addressing would fall into the latter category. But no, it soon becomes apparent that the video is all about highlighting Leon’s friendships and family relationships, focusing on the former when she enters a music studio space, laughing and talking for a bit before she and her friends soon find themselves out dancing—almost as if to distract herself from thoughts like, “Could it be that this is over?/My heart will know/My head will follow.” (Even though the sign in L.A. Story puts it another way: “Let your mind go and your body will follow.”)

And though dancing the night away beneath the blue light appears to serve as a welcome distraction for a bit (how very “I Feel So Free”), it’s not long before Leon stops in the middle of it all, as if having the internal epiphany, “I can feel the line of your hand/Running up my back/I can’t think of anything/But you caressing my head/Tracing in and out of my mind.”

Realizing she no longer wants to be in “the public space,” the next few shots show Leon in a cab (a.k.a. Uber) and then walking down the hallway of an apartment building. She knocks on the door, after which her own real-life grandma (or abuelita in this case), Maria Leon (after whom Lourdes “Maria” Leon is named and who she looks very similar to, apart from Madonna), answers. It’s at this point that Leon finds comfort in the familial bond, with another montage shot of various framed family photos (including ones of Maria when she was younger, and the spitting of image of Lola) emphasizing her close-knit ties to the side of the family that her father, Carlos Leon, has to offer.

As if to further underscore the strong bond she has with Carlos Leon’s mother (especially seeing as how Madonna’s has been dead since long before Lola was even born), Yue begins to wind down the video with a scene of Lola embracing Maria on her bed before showing Lola lying on that same bed all by herself as the final shot. Almost as if it’s an eerie foreshadowing of the loneliness she might feel when her grandmother is no longer around (at which time she can call up Ariana Grande to commiserate). Making the final pair of lines, “I know this goes endlessly/You’re haunting me,” hit on an entirely different level. One that makes it so the song doesn’t feel as if it’s about romantic love at all. So much as the kind of love that provides “port in the storm”-level solace. Even if/when that love doesn’t always feel “permanent.”