As Shygirl keeps the hits coming from her short but sweet (not to be confused with Short n’ Sweet) EP, Club Shy Room 2, she’s been quick to follow up the video for “True Religion” (set within the confines of a boat floating along the Seine) with “Wifey Riddim” featuring Jorja Smith and SadBoi. Easily the best song on the record (though it’s difficult to choose just one—even if there are only five), Shygirl taps into her Caribbean roots (think: select tracks on the early Rihanna albums, Music of the Sun and A Girl Like Me) with the help of Jorja Smith and SadBoi. For it seems she’s found her niche in collaborations à trois (sort of like Selena Gomez with Benny Blanco and Gracie Abrams). That much was already made clear when she teamed up with Isabella Lovestory and PinkPantheress for “True Religion,” but now, it’s official: Shygirl should definitely be at the helm of a girl group à la Destiny’s Child.
Taking the song into the place where it belongs—the clerb—Shygirl continues to wield the same, let’s say, DIY/analogue style we’ve seen in her previous videos for the tracks from Club Shy Room 2 (including “Immaculate” featuring Saweetie and “Fuck Me” featuring Yseult). In fact, Shygirl’s music video aesthetic and style for this “cycle” is very reminiscent of the “Caprivids” that FKA Twigs was putting out in droves circa 2022 in honor of her mixtape, Caprisongs.
With a similarly grainy, gritty and “no frills” approach, Shygirl makes those who can’t be in the club to experience Club Shy Room 2 as it was meant to be feel closer to the material than they otherwise would. And “Wifey Riddim” is the most apex example of that, with Shy using footage from her various Club Shy dates (so far) to play up the motif of the free-spirited track, which offers up such grandiloquent lines as, “Look too good, but stay bad quietly/Wanna be mine? That won’t be likely” and “I know you dream of me, but, boy, it’s just a fantasy.”
As for the latter sentiment, it has the dual meaning of 1) he can keep dreaming of being with her, but it’s always going to be just a fantasy because she’s too fly for someone so beneath her and 2) his dreams of her are only a fantasy/projection that the real her isn’t willing to even bother trying to live up to. Either way, Shy is looking for a man who knows it’s true when she sings, “You like me the way I am, don’t need to change a thing.”
And one thing that Shy obviously wouldn’t change for any of the “mandem” lining up to be with her is a predilection for being a club rat. Opening the video in “selfie mode” as she holds up the camera (we’re talking an “old school” camcorder that looks like it was pulled straight outta the 00s) at an “overhead” angle to film herself, Jorja and SadBoi in the elevator before entering the club, Shy tongue-in-cheekly captioned it with, “Who said you can’t find a wife in the club!?! There 3 right here 💍💍💍.”
Indeed, part of Shygirl’s mission statement for Club Shy Room 2 seems to be setting the record straight on what “kind of girl” you’ll find in the club. Not to mention the fact that a girl can be both “ho” and “wifey” at the same time. A woman, after all, is a many-layered being (though it’s never been easy for men to comprehend that).
As the rhythm ramps up, so, too, does the pace at which the viewer is bombarded with Shygirl’s clubland visuals. At times, the image is just that—a photo instead of a video. With such photos being frozen on the screen before transitioning back to “video mode.” Then there are the instances when Shygirl adheres to the same aesthetic she has for previous videos from Club Shy Room 2, parading images in collage-like form, overlapping the images (in their square shape), inserting random split screens and having moments where Shy and co. are “cut out” from the image, making the rest of the backdrop look blurred out.
All of it collides to create a simultaneously disjointed and cohesive effect (in other words, the same feeling one usually gets in such a setting) that gives the viewer a voyeuristic look at The Club. And perhaps, if Shygirl is lucky, it might even tantalize more people to buy tickets to her next Club Shy event. Or even to FKA Twigs’ next Eusexua rave.
