Kevin Bronson on October 28th, 2015

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L.A. native Jean Claude White has had his fingers in the art and fashion world, but it is his ethereal music — made under the name JEĀN CLĀUDE — that keeps those digits on the piano. The London-educated singer-songwriter pens spare, deeply emotive piano-and-synthesizer compositions that posit him as a man haunted by love, bruised by loss and stoic in the face of it all. And he regards his look as an extension of his music — as in the new video for his second single “IPA.” Here, Jean Claude is an Elizabethan era portrait coming to life. “My message is to highlight the fact that painters during the Elizabethan era did not document color,” he says. “As a black male born during the L.A. riots, I witnessed racial violence both globally and in the U.S. I felt the need to tell the story of the many who came before me and weren’t acknowledged … The ruff collar was a status symbol, worn by the most elite, successful monarchy. Wearing such a distinct piece is a controversy within itself. I always wondered why there wasn’t color, I was never okay with it, I feel like i am changing history every time I wear it.” The single follows his debut “Tongue Tied,” released in September, the video for which displays some improbably piano chops. Regal.

||| Watch: “IPA” and his previous video, “Tongue Tied”

||| Also: Stream his first two singles: