Jesy Nelson cosplays as a Black girl for Halloween, in her debut solo music video "Boyz"

I guess it's appropriate for ex Little Mix member Jesy Nelson to release her debut solo song on the month of Halloween, given that she's hopscotching between her clown outfit and her Black girl cosplay throughout the entire thing.

And for her to also pay homage to Christina Aguilera during Stripped, a period when a fellow RGB 255,255,255 was also in her Blackfishing bag?

Gurl.

The line between being influenced and appropriating is as thin as Aretha Franklin's spaghetti straps at 2008's MusiCares event.

Black people have cast a shadow and a net so big over music, that you'd be hard pressed to find music out right now which doesn't have some form of connection to Black culture, especially as Blackness is a trend across the board right now.

Jesy likes Hip-Hop and R&B, and wants to do that style of music, and that's absolutely fine. But as per Kumi Koda doing the foolishness she did in the music video for "Doo-Bee-Doo-Bop", I don't get why this has to come with all of the caricatures of perceived Blackness. You can just...do the music.

Jesy has long been accused of Blackfishing, even back when she was in Little Mix. And when she was confronted about it, her excuse was just that she didn't know she was doing it, adding that her team were shielding her from such claims, which means they were aware.

I get that during the period of Jesy's departure that her team probabaly felt 'This is the last thing she needs', given that mental health concerns is what Jesy cites as a key reason as to why she left Little Mix. But the blackfishing claims was something Jesy's team absolutely needed to address with her, if they knew she was prepping a solo career and that she was not going to change anything of her look.

The fact that nobody in Jesy's team tried to steer this music video in a different direction just goes to show how much Jesy or her team don't care about pillaging Blackness for clicks, likes and dislikes. Because to release this music video with these looks after Little Mix's Leigh-Anne released a whole documentary on the discrimination she faces as the only Black member of the group and release it during British Black history month was a deliberate choice.

It's not even about the skin tone. Jesy is from Romford, which was actually was part of Essex until 1965 (a history lesson for ya). And if there's one thing Romford / Essex bitches live for, it's a spray tan which is 7 whole shades darker than their actual skin tone. It's everything else that comes with it.

And for y'all willing to due on the hill of 'She's paying homage to Puff Daddy', may y'all rest in no peace. Jesy could have paid all the homage to Puff Daddy in the world without the Beyoncé BET awards 2006 "Deja vu" wig, the neck snapping, finger pointing and the rest of it.

I'm also confused at why Jesy really left Little Mix. Jesy opened up about her mental health, and I'm a big advocate for making personal decisions which put you in a healthier mind space. But the 2 things Jesy highlighted as reasons for exiting the group don't track on the surface, because they are still things she's going to have to deal with going solo, and doing so THIS quickly after leaving the group.

Jesy faced problems with her own body image as a result of the public scrutiny she was under in Little Mix. But I can't see how going solo will change that. Jesy also said she didn't like her entire life being controlled by Little Mix's schedule. But Universal Music are clearly investing a lot in Jesy to make the solo thing work, so her life is absolutely going to be controlled by whatever schedule they feel is right to make this solo thing happen. Jesy seems to have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Unless of course she just wanted to leave the group because she was tired of it, which is fine. This makes more sense to me than boiling the reasons down to body confidence issues and not liking a schedule. But we never ever really know shit unless we're in the shit ourselves. So this is just my own observation and trying to make sense of what Jesy is presenting to us, and to me it doesn't make sense. Especially given the amount of scrutiny and fire she's under now, which is of a whole other level compared to what she'd ever dealt with whilst she was in Little Mix.

This whole song and video just left a sour taste in my mouth.

I can't even say I like the song, because I think it's terrible. The song concept and the use of the "Bad Boy for Life" sample is a good one, but the execution is doo-doo. And it leaves me confused as to who the market for a song like this even is. Those who are old enough to remember P. Diddy's "Bad Boy for Life" ain't gonna fuck with this song, because it doesn't do enough with the sample or elevate the original song. And young white girls who were Little Mix fans won't know that the entire song is based on the beat of a Puff Daddy song, that the music video is based on a Puff Daddy video, and will wonder who the Black man is at the front door and why the video halts because of him.

There is a generational divide in this song that Nicki Minaj's inclusion will PARTLY bridge. But even so, the song itself isn't strong enough to really cross it in the same way say Mariah Carey did when she sampled popular hit songs from yesteryear for the likes of "Fantasy" and "Heartbreaker" - both of which were great songs in their own right.

I also think that going this route for a debut song and look for Jesy was bizarre (Blackfishing aside), because it gives me no insight into who Jesy is...aside from a Blackfisher. Jesy wants to be set apart from Little Mix, but this song and video are things that I could imagine Little Mix doing anyway. Also, to come out with a solo song which lazily uses such a prominent sample, with a music video which is basically a copy of said music video, with other pop culture references, AND features Nicki Minaj!? It all feels like a distraction to mask what isn't a good song. Jesy is citing how all of this turned out down to her wanting to celebrate 90s R&B. Yet, when Normani came out with "Motivation" to do the exact same thing, I still got a sense of who Normani was as an artist.

Jesy needs to take those tracks out, use a foundation shade which is actually her colour and try again. And Nicki Minaj needs to sit in her glass house with her sex offending husband and her unvaccinated self, and be quiet, instead of hoping on Instagram live to defend Jesy's blackfishing. Defending Jesy and co-signing this foolishness is a dangerous thing to do with a platform as big as Nicki Minaj's. The last thing that Jesy and girls like her should be getting from a Black woman is validation that what they're doing is okay, then in the same breath making out that Black women are the problem. No bag is worth being this ignorant, especially when you have Nicki's money.

This whole thing is just a complete mess but it's all promo which will help Jesy and the song. As we've seen over the past few years within current affairs and all the other affairs, even bad promo can become good promo.

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Jesy Nelson cosplays as a Black girl for Halloween, in her debut solo music video "Boyz"

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