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May 24, 2023 By Mark Redfern

Cassandra Jenkins has shared a new music video/short film for her song “Hailey (premix)” co-directed by the song’s inspiration, model/actress/journalist/director Hailey Benton Gates, who sat on the footage for a year before delivering it to Jenkins as a thank-you for writing a song about her. The original version of the song, “Hailey,” was found on Jenkins’ acclaimed 2021 album, An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, although the “Hailey (premix)” version comes from the companion album, An Overview on (An Overview on Phenomenal Nature), released later in 2021. Both were released via Ba Da Bing. Check out the video below, which was co-directed by filmmaker sisters Olivia and Madeleine Peters, who shot the film since Gates is also in it.

A press release describes the project in more detail: “When musician Cassandra Jenkins released ‘Hailey,’ a love song to her friend Hailey Benton Gates, the model, director, journalist, and actress didn’t know how to respond. A few months later, Hailey vowed to reciprocate the gesture by filming a music video for the song, and the two embarked on a series of misadventures across Los Angeles, caught on camera by filmmaker sisters Olivia and Madeleine Peters.

“When the video stalled, and a year passed, Cassandra and Hailey lost touch. Determined to keep their promise, Hailey and the Peters sisters quietly got to work. What resulted was no longer a music video—‘Hailey’ is the reclamation of a failed attempt at reciprocity in the form of a short film—it defies the rules of music videos in a joyful, clear eyed, and personal performance that becomes a love letter of its own accord.”

Jenkins was one of the artists who took part in our 20th anniversary Covers of Covers album, where she covered Animal Collective’s “It’s You.”

Read our 2021 interview with Jenkins, where she discusses An Overview on Phenomenal Nature.

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