T-Pain Protégé Crystal Tamar Releases ‘Serenade’ Visual | Inspired By Classic Soul Ballads

Filmed in Los Angeles, the clip for the soulful and sensual ballad was produced by Story Lit Films and captures Crystal Tamar in a number of gorgeous looks as she displays her flawless, hypnotic vocals and compassionate lyrics about true love. Produced by Christopher Duncanson and Michael A. Gordon, “Serenade” is the third single from her self-titled debut EP.

Crystal Tamar describes the video. “I knew the video for ‘Serenade’ had to scream love and romance from the rooftops,” she says. “I was honestly inspired by those Charlize Theron J’adore perfume commercials. You can’t watch those without yelling at the TV ‘GIRL … YOU BETTA!'” she says with a laugh. “It was also equally important to make the audience identify with wanting to serenade their own love and it not be all about me.”

The video also spotlights the talented and graceful dancer Sidney Johnson. Crystal Tamar stated, “I thought inviting a contemporary dancer would artistically get that done. Kind of like that old EnVogue video where the dancer made you reflect on the meaning more than the group. Ms. Sidney Johnson, our lovely principal dancer out of LA, blessed our set in under half an hour and killed it!”

In celebration of Black Music Month , Crystal Tamar is paying homage this week to some of her favorite soul classics with a daily, pop-up podcast series, “Crystal Tamar Presents – Serenade: Best Song Duets.” UB founder AriesUBG took part this week. Streaming on her CrystalTamar.com website at 2 p.m., each episode of the five-part series features Crystal Tamar and a special guest R&B aficionado listening to and discussing songs from her personal playlist, sharing factoids, and personal memories.

On Monday, Craig Seymour from Craig’s Pop Life describes Luther Vandross’ vocal performance on “If This World Were Mine” with Cheryl Lynn.

On Tuesday, Cynthia Horner from Right On! Digital explained her love for Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson, who wrote Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”

On Wednesday, Aries Dendy from Urban Bridgez shared backstories about Deborah Cox and R.L.’s duet “We Can’t Be Friends.”

On Thursday, Lexx Jonez from KMEL appeard on the podcast, and Shameika Rhymes from Check The Rhymes joins Crystal Tamar today.

Encores of each episode are streamed daily via Twitter Spaces, Twitter’s new Clubhouse competitor.

Crystal is a protégé of T-Pain and was a member in the group Sophia Fresh, we spoke to her last year and asked, why did the group disband? “After about 3 years of being signed to Atlantic we wasn’t really happy. We wanted to put out more music. We felt a little hindered by the label in a sense. So we sought a release which took a pretty long time for that release to happen.” Crystal Tamar went on to say; “At that point we were on our own and trying to put our heads together to figure out how to move forward, without the label. That ended up putting a pretty big strain on the group. Just really trying to figure out the best possible plan. In the end, we just decided that everybody should just go their separate ways. It was all amicable and everybody is on great terms still till this day. It was just kind of our time to see what was out their for us individually.”