Jorja Smith Brings Sexy Back in Her New Music Video, The One
Jorja Smith was a beauty star from the start. When she burst onto the scene in the fall of 2017 with her music video for the endlessly playable “On My Mind,” the British R&B singer set a new bar for the all-over glossy makeup look: her skin, impossibly radiant—thanks to a no-nonsense nighttime cleansing routine—and her lids and lips effortlessly sensual, and tinted a sweet iridescent rose, too.
And with her new music video for “The One,” Smith proves that she can do much more than a fine and glassy facade. Yes, there are plenty of those moments, too—the visual does start with her lying down on a motel room bed alongside a seemingly distant partner, softly crying, with that very same glow that’s quickly become her signature. But over the course of the video, she adds more drama to her ever-evolving beauty repertoire.
The newly released visual essentially chronicles Smith in an unfulfilling loop—she looks despondent in the bath, she languishes against window sills, and eventually she walks out the door and into the parking lot towards a taxi only to turn back around to start the cycle all over again. All the while she sings about the ways in which she holds back intimacy in an attempt to remain independent: "When I need someone, I don’t want to need no one/ I’m not trying to let you in, even if I found the one," she coos.
Her beauty trajectory seems to mirror that sense of growing self-determination throughout the clip. After another brief hesitation, confused as to whether she should leave her old love in search of a new one, she finally gathers herself and struts from the hotel room in fully teased, bed head fashion—it’s the show-stopping Smith her fans have come to know and love. And it gets better. In the end, after gaining momentum by feeling herself in the mirror in a hip-hugging olive green slip, Smith does get into that getaway car, in a va-va-voom messy updo no less, those piece-y onyx strands framing her forward-looking gaze. It’s a sight to be seen, broken here into four gifs, for your viewing pleasure.
