Skepta’s sceptical eye

Directed by Hugh Mulhern and produced by Object & Animal, the music video for Pandora's Box explores the uneasy relationship between bravado, addiction and self-control, as grime maestro Skepta delivers a blunt warning to a friend who is asking for money to launch a business venture. 

Describing the man as someone whose "coke never came in a can" and who "gets high on his own supply," Skepta is then visualised looking at himself in the mirror, giving the film an introspective edge. 

As he raps at his own reflection, the confrontation feels less like a lecture to the next generation and more like an uncomfortable reckoning with his former self. "You said that you wanna be successful. You never knew it was gonna be so much stress. Life was easier when you needed less. But don't look back, you might get depressed."

Mulhern has shot the film like a long, bad night out, yet keeps the film restrained, with little action and no resolution, which suits a song about watching someone close to you disappear.

The new video accompanies the second single from his album The Fork and Knife.