Cynicism is a growing phenomenon in music. True love songs are hard to come by these days. Deriving its name from Rihanna’s “We Found Love,” Yellow Diamonds is a series of lyric breakdowns in which VIBE Senior Music Editor Austin Williams celebrates songs that sound like love found in a hopeless mainstream.
Over the past month or so, I’ve been consumed with the nostalgia of home videos and family photos. About a week after the premiere of Jeen-Yuhs, the three-part Netflix documentary emotionally anchored by moments shared between Donda and Kanye West, my own family sent me some photos from my childhood. While searching for prints of my grandmother, my mother stumbled upon some old pictures of me and my siblings. Mom wasn’t in any of them. Two weeks after that, I watched Victoria Monét’s tribute to her 1-year-old daughter, Hazel, and wished I had posed for more photos with my parents.
On Feb. 21, Victoria Monét released “Nothing Feels Better,” a music video comprised of home footage celebrating her daughter’s first birthday. What I found most beautiful about the tribute is how often the singer and her child share the screen together. A part of this is likely generational, as Monét and I are of a similar age, having grown up at a time in which photographing oneself is a daily norm, kid or no kid. My mother and father, on the other hand, became parents in the ‘80s, at a time in which self-documentation must have felt kind of strange. As a result, they don’t have as many photos of themselves.
While watching “Nothing Feels Better,” something felt familiar yet oddly distant. I remember growing up in a household with just as much parental love as the one Monét is raising her daughter in, but not enough of it was documented. As I went through the pictures my family sent me recently, admiring things like the way my hats always matched my sneakers on the first day of school or the sort of smirk and sleepy-eyed gaze I’d put on when I wanted to look cool, I realized I’d be much more interested in seeing the people behind the camera and remembering the times we shared.
My parents cherished me and my siblings so much that they photographed us every chance they got, no matter how big or small the milestone. At 29, though, I’m realizing the only downside to that sort of sentimental fixation is they rarely included themselves in the images they captured. When paired with visuals of Monét and her family, including her partner John Gaines, the lyrics of “Nothing Feels Better” distill the benefit of modern-day parenting, in that all love is compulsively documented these days—even the love shared between parents and children.
Sometimes I don’t know if I tell you enough
But I want you to know, you make life better
I wonder if forever is even enough
It’s a feeling I just can’t measure
What’s ironic about the opening lines of “Nothing Feels Better” is they sound like the sort of thing a child eventually grows up to say to their parents. As these lyrics accompany images of Hazel’s first week out of the womb, perhaps there’s a parallel to be drawn between the early and later moments of a person’s life, in that neither children nor parents ever seem to have the words to accurately describe the weight of their love.
Maybe a substitute for that missing language is what I’m longing for when I look at images of my younger self and wish my parents were in those photos as well. And maybe that’s what’s so touching about Monét’s music video, the sensation of seeing the sort of love that words don’t adequately serve. The song itself, still unavailable to stream in audio, wouldn’t do the feeling justice otherwise.
Baby, nothing, nothing feels better than loving you, you
I’ma tell you, nothing (Mhm)
Nothing feels better than loving you, you, you
Nothing in this world could feel much better than loving you
Better than loving you, you
Nothing in this world could feel much better than loving you
Better than loving you, you (Mhm)
Simple and sweet, the song’s chorus arrives as Monét and her daughter dance in what appears to be an empty studio overlooking LA or New York. What’s striking about this present-day footage is how fast Hazel’s grown up over the course of a year. As a childless person myself, I’ve never given much thought to when kids typically take their first steps. That magical moment is shown later in the video.
My little sunshine, the best I’ve ever done
You’re everything I’ve evеr hoped for, wrapped up into one
Oh, I can see my wholе world in your eyes and it makes me want to cry
Because I’m just so happy that you’re mine
Set to footage of those aforementioned first steps, as well as images of afternoons in the kiddie pool and mommy-daughter lunch dates, the second verse of “Nothing Feels Better” describes a similar sentiment as the message Monét posted in the video’s YouTube description. “I thought it’d be you doing all the growing but you’ve grown me up in ways I didn’t think someone so tiny could,” the singer wrote to her 1-year-old. “You make every breath I take way more important. Every day my first thought and every night my last prayer.”
As I look back at the photos I mentioned earlier—my sister and me in front of our elementary school, my first rap concert, some admittedly adorable baby pictures—it’s nice to know the lyrics of this song and the poetry of its YouTube caption reflect what my parents must have been feeling on the other side of the lens. Blessed to still have them both in my life, it might be wise for me to teach them how to use the timer feature on their iPhone cameras so we can finally get some flicks together.