Black and White and Burning

Before Yoann Lemoine released an album as Woodkid, he was already one of the more interesting music video directors working—he’d shot for Lana Del Rey, Katy Perry, Drake. Then he made Run Boy Run for himself, and it was immediately clear he’d been saving something. Black and white, operatic strings, a child running through burning fields. The song operates on that register where epic starts to feel inevitable rather than manufactured. His full-length The Golden Age would come the following year, but this was the moment that established what Woodkid actually was: a filmmaker making music, not a musician making videos.