Following the release of his new single ‘WX5’, New York-born/LA-based artist Shaun Ross has shared his new ethereal synth-driven single ‘YOU CARE’ via Propeller Records.
For the accompanying music video, directed by Anastasia Lebedeva Delmark, Shaun performed the entire song via ASL (American Sign Language) as a way of celebrating the importance of communication.
Deeply personal and close to home, ‘YOU CARE’ is an ever-expanding synth-lead behemoth that feels both huge and disarmingly tender. “As individuals we’re not super vulnerable with the way we express ourselves and we should be telling people ‘hey, I’m a little fragile.’ You have to tell people how you want to be loved,” Shaun says of the single.
Shaun says, “My mission with this single is to urge those who discover it not only to have patience but learn to communicate on different levels with those around you. Body language is the most powerful language, and when I learned how to interpret ASL, teaming up with ASL teacher Zachary B. Jones, it really made my song feel more alive than just singing to it.”
Shaun is the first professional male model with albinism, and has become a cultural symbol for difference and acceptance. He first found success at the age of 16, when he was discovered on YouTube by a modelling agency.
Since then, his modelling career has seen him in the pages of GQ and Vogue, as well as fronting campaigns for the likes of Alexander McQueen and Fendi. Fashion aside, music has always been a passion of Shaun’s.
Ross traces his musical genre-hopping to his upbringing in the Bronx. When his parents weren’t fans of what was playing on the local radio stations, they chose to educate via their own eclectic tastes. “So every morning my parents would get ready for work and they would blast music,” Ross remembers. “Sometimes I would wake up and there’s Björk playing at 7am. Or there’s Phyllis Hyman playing, or Donny Hathaway, then there’s Everything But The Girl, or The Cardigans. It was such a wide spectrum. Later on I realised ‘oh this is why I have my music taste’ because my parents played all of these things day in and day out. I wasn’t always listening to what everyone else was listening to.”
Music was Shaun’s solace during his school years as he endured years of relentless bullying, and his love of it crossed over into his modelling career via appearances in music videos by the likes of Beyoncé (‘Pretty Hurts’), Katy Perry (‘ET’), and Lana Del Rey (2013’s short film ‘Tropico’). Taking sonic cues from artists as diverse as Björk, Maxwell, serpentwithfeet, Moses Sumney and Seal, in 2017 he released his first single, ‘Symmetry,’ featuring Lizzo on backing vocals. He released another single, ‘Chrysalis,’ the following year, and began to take his music career further by opening for other artists and performing at events and festivals.
‘YOU CARE’ is a shining example of Shaun’s mission to encourage inclusivity, celebrate difference and accept one another for who we are.
