Estere shares new video ‘Grandmother’

“Appelez de la terre l’esprit de ma grand-mère”
“Call from the earth the spirit of my grandmother”

Written on the eve of her paternal grandmother’s passing, today Estère shares possibly the most personal song of them all off her newly released body of work, My Design Part 1. Watch the official music video, filmed by Zenn Van Zyl, produced by the empress herself and directed by Paascalino Schaller here.
‘Grandmother’ was crafted as a tribute to her grandmother and namesake Estère (meaning ‘morning star’) and recorded in the homely surrounds of Estère’s 1940s Wellington villa. It unravels with syncopated rhythms and warm hazes of synthesizer as the words twist around a soaring, unconfined melody.

The production of the video is a story of being in the right place at the right time. Estère’s family are from the West African nation of Cameroon, and touring Africa meant she could make a visual connection with her ancestral continent. Estère reflects, “I was in the middle of my 2016 Southern Africa tour when I found out that we had received funding from NZ On Air. I decided right then and there that I wanted to make a video for this song in Africa.”

Filmed along the beautiful Cape Town peninsula at Betty’s Bay, Estère worked with legendary Author, Woman’s Rights Ambassador & UN Representative Sindiwe Magona, who plays her grandmother in the video.

“She had written a book called My Children’s Children and it was the sentiment of this song that compelled her to work with us on our video. It was a once in a lifetime experience,” she says on collaborating with Magona.

To celebrate the recent release of her new mini-album My Design, part one of an interconnected body of work, Estère has announced four New Zealand shows this December. Following a sold out Pro Bono Techno Zone tour in August, Estère will bring the songs of My Design to life, backed by a band of both humans and machines. Full tour dates and information here.