Russ and Ed Sheeran both know how to make hits on their own account, but this New Music Friday, they came together to deliver "Are You Entertained" as a tribute to their late friend Jamal Edwards MBE, who tragically passed away earlier this year.
The "Ride Slow" singer gave some of the back story to the single over on YouTube, writing, "I'm so grateful for this moment. I walked up to Ed at a restaurant (Carbone) and assumed he didn’t know who I was. Just wanted to introduce myself and say what’s up. Next thing I know I’m eating pasta and drinking wine at his table talkin bout everything."
"Fast forward and we had this song and we wanted to shoot a video to it so he introduced me to Jamal Edwards, a brilliant visionary and special soul who wrote the treatment for the video."
Russ shared that the day before he was meant to fly out to London to film the visual, they received the tragic news that Jamal had passed away.
"I had never met Jamal other than those emails but I can tell he was a special person. The way Ed, Jamal’s mother Brenda, his sister Tanisha, the director Jake Nava, the producer Ali and everyone else who worked on this rallied together and still wanted to make Jamal’s vision come to life, showed the impact he had."
Check out the "Are You Entertained" music video above, and stream the song on Spotify, Apple Music, or Soundcloud below.
Quotable Lyrics:
At first, when adversity came I said, "Why me?"
Now I be starin' at doubt sayin', "Try me"
Kyrie, I handle it well
They still takin' shots, tryna hand me a L, but I pass on that
Anger, I try not to act on that
I'ma just transmute it
Put it all back in the music