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Music

Watch Nolay’s Powerful Video for "Dancing With the Devil"

One of grime's strongest voices details an abusive relationship effort to raise awareness of domestic violence.
Emma Garland
London, GB

Nolay has been one of the most powerful voices in grime for a minute. Whether it's addiction or institutionalised racism, she has consistently come through with the hardest bars about some of the most difficult topics to broach. Today, she releases a video for "Dancing With the Devil", which unpacks the story of an abusive relationship in an effort to raise awareness of domestic violence.

In the lead up to the release, Nolay has been sharing videos on Twitter of survivor's stories and messages of support from people within the music industry, amplifying an issue so widespread that police in the UK receive an emergency call relating to domestic violence every 30 seconds on average. "I always focus on the good and not the bad in these men / And now the feds have gotta go and tell my mother I'm dead / I think my soul left my body tenth kick to the head / I blacked out on the fifth and the carpet went red," she spits in one of her realest and most hard-hitting tracks to date.

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We will stress in advance that this a tough watch and contains graphic scenes which may be distressing to some viewers.

You can watch "Dancing With the Devil" below, as well as our recent documentary with Nolay here which was made as part of Noisey's Music and Mental Health series.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing domestic violence you can contact the National Domestic Violence hotline here or Galop for LGBT specific services.

Follow Noisey on Twitter.