Сharli XCX and Rina Sawayama are out for blood — literally. On Friday (Feb. 11), the British pop stars released the video for their collaborative single, “Beg for You,” which features the women joined by a cult of friends, ready to engage in a sacrifice led by the devil.
The artists are led by a seemingly religious figure dress in all white to an open clearing that shows a small pool full of water surrounded by dirt. As Charli and Sawayama dance in unison, a black-clad figure with tall devil’s horns watches in the background and later gifts the 29-year-old a shard of glass to press into her palm and draw blood. After the religious figure takes a sip of the blood-infused pool water, the background dancers become possessed and drop dead by the end of the video.
“Beg for You” is the third single from Charli XCX’s fifth studio album, Crash. The house-inspired track comes after previous album singles “Good Ones” and “New Shapes” featuring Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek. The video for “Beg for You” arrives on the heels of Charli’s fans criticizing her rollout plan for the album, which she addressed in a statement posted to Twitter on Feb. 10.
“I’ve noticed lately that a few people seem quite angry at me — for the choices of songs I’ve chosen to release, for the way I’ve decided to roll out my campaign, for the things I need to do to fund what will be the greatest tour I’ve ever done, for things I say, things I do etc.,” she explained. “I’ve been grappling quite a lot with my mental health the past few months and obviously it makes negativity and criticism harder to handle when I come across it.”
She continued, “In the meantime, I’m thinking of just drafting tweets from afar when I feel like saying something and having someone else post them, just for a little while, because I can’t really handle it here right now.”
Crash will be released on March 10 via Atlantic Records. Watch the video for “Beg for You” below.
