Snow Tha Product and Lauren Jauregui Team Up for Unapologetically Queer ‘Piña’ Video
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
On Friday, Snow Tha Product and Lauren Jauregui premiered the video for their new collab “Piña,” which unapologetically embraces their queerness. The visuals are powerful, and Jauregui describes their effect best: “Two pretty girls into each other without the male gaze involved is low-key revolutionary.”
The video follows Snow arriving at the Latinx bar La Cita in Los Angeles and meeting Jauregui. Throughout the video, the two artists dance together and come close to sharing a kiss.
“I wanted the video to be with a queer woman. And originally they tried a few different people, but I really was like, ‘No, it has to be Lauren,’” Snow tells Rolling Stone over Zoom from her L.A. ranch. “I didn’t want it to be a person that it was just for clout or it was just for male attention. It’s a real thing.”
For both Snow and Jauregui, the song is about breaking a taboo that continues to exist in some genres of music: “I love the idea of making the kinda music I wish existed when I was younger and having visuals to match that are sexy, flirty, and fun,” says Jauregui. “I feel like queerness gets tossed around like a taboo or fetish in music, especially in Latinx spaces and especially femme-on-femme energy.”
Snow says it was about “focusing on the importance of a moment” like this for queer artists. “I think the intention behind certain things is very important and the intention with Lauren is that I was being very honest about what queer women and non-binary people might go through,” she explains. “Leading by example is better than arguing.”
Before Snow and Jauregui began working on the track, Snow says she invited the former Fifth Harmony star over just so they could just hang out and get to know each other. “I like to vibe with people and make sure that we fuck with each other before we work together,” Snow says. And they did. “We’re both cancers, we’re both very similar. We talked about life, frequency, fucking everything,” Snow adds.
During their meeting, Jauregui even encouraged and convinced Snow to release her project To Anywhere. The EP, which features “Piña,” came out several weeks ago.
“I choose to speak life over and into people. I have met a lot of people in this industry and every artist I know battles with demons that no one will ever see,” Jauregui says. “Snow is a hardworking, talented, dope human and artist and all I did was remind her that her perspective, voice, and vision are important and necessary. She already had put in the work, she just needed the reminder.”
Snow is thankful for that support. “The balls to have a project really came from Lauren hyping me up,” she says.
They decided to shoot the music video at La Cita after they met up again and wound up at the bar. “Me and her ended up there on a random day when we both needed to vent,” Snow says. “We had a blast. It was funny, it was fun. And she was like, ‘This is exactly where we should shoot ‘Piña.’ And so that’s what happened.”
On To Anywhere, the rapper tracks her ups and downs over the last several years. It’s a sonically diverse 16-song project with collaborators Santa Fe Klan, Rotini, and Dominican star Ceky Viciny, and it features dembow, what Snow calls “a ratchet song” with Juicy J, and songs that are “very sad” and about her recent heartbreak.
“It’s just me experiencing what I’m going through in my personal life. But at the same time, having those moments of happiness during breakups when your friends are like, ‘Bitch, you just need to get out,’” Snow explains. “And then you have those moments when you’re alone and you’re crying and you’re like, ‘Why me?’ type shit.”
“Piña” is Jauregui’s latest song since she dropped “Always Love” in October. “It was important for me to put [this song] into the world for the same reason every song is: It tells my story and it is an honest expression of a moment that allowed me to heal,” she told Rolling Stone about that track.
More from Rolling Stone
Colorado Springs Gay Club Shooting Suspect Charged With 305 Counts, Including Bias-Motivated Crimes
Ryan Castro Sings From the Waters of Ibiza in Upbeat 'Marbella' Video
Best of Rolling Stone
