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Ella Mai released the video for “Trip,” the follow-up to her breakout smash “Boo’d Up,” on Tuesday.
Since “Boo’d Up” was such a big hit — Top Ten on the Hot 100, and still climbing at pop radio — Mai doesn’t mess with the formula on “Trip:” This single also builds around a simple keyboard riff and chattering drums. Mai excels at turning off-kilter streams of words into gooey hooks, and she achieves that again here. “I think that I’m done trippin’, I’m trip-trippin’, I’ve been sippin,’” she sings. “That’s how I control this feelin’ you keep givin’.”
Though the single is about whether or not Mai can salvage her relationship with “baby boy,” the clip is startlingly personal: All Mai all the time, with no partner in sight. She puts on a vinyl record, sits on the floor, and sings moodily in a variety of lonely locations — empty bleachers, the passenger seat of an otherwise empty car.
“Trip” was thrown quickly into rotation at mainstream R&B/hip-hop radio, climbing to Number 15 in just five weeks. More than 13 million listeners heard it over the airwaves last week alone. Meanwhile, “Boo’d Up” is still riding high — Number Five on the same chart, but also Number One for ten weeks at Adult R&B radio, and Number 29 at pop.
Mai is set to release her debut album this fall.
