Welcome to The Drop, Refinery29’s new home for exclusive music video premieres. We want to shine the spotlight on women artists whose music inspires, excites, and (literally) moves us. This is where we’ll champion their voices.
“The federal minimum wage is $7.25,” Remmi reminds us at the beginning of the song. She adds, “That’s some bleak shit.” In the video for the song, which drops today, the colors are saturated and cheerful, but Remmi herself is decidedly not. Dressed in a floral frock and working behind the counter at a fast food restaurant, she deadpans to the camera, a la The Office, as if to say, ‘Isn’t this dumb?’
“In the last couple of years, I’ve kind of tried to get away from being super political creatively. And I’ve just been, like, you know, ‘Everything sucks right now, so it’s cool to use creativity to create a respite from all of that and just have a good time,'” she tells Refinery29. Her most recent single before the release of “Minimum Wage” was a collaboration with DJ NVDES called “Do Your Thing.” A low-fi celebration of sexual freedom, the song ended up in an iPhone X commercial this January. For “Minimum Wage,” Remmi and her co-writers wanted something ever-so-slightly political. Politics in music can lend itself to bland, sweeping generalizations — think the type of songs that become campaign anthems. “Minimum Wage” skirts this by being personal and just a little bit stupid.
