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Portland hip-hop artist Swiggle Mandela has released a new music video for his latest single “Dear Willamette Week, Pt. 2.”
The video primarily follows Mandela as he moves through the Willamette Week office and reflects on his experience in spring as WW’s Best New Band 2024 cover artist, along with playing the artist showcase at Mississippi Studios. “Dear Willamette Week / You just helped me change my life / thank you for acknowledging how hard I had to fight,” Mandela raps as he holds the framed cover.
The song is a long way from Mandela’s 2018 “Dear Willamette Week,” a diss track the artist released out of frustration over white Lake Oswego rapper Wynne being featured in a previous WW Best New Bands issue. (Mandela and Wynne buried the hatchet long ago.) That music video included a scene of Mandela urinating on and burning an issue of the paper.
“I felt like I had to do a part two because of part one,” he says with a laugh. “I just wanted to show my gratitude. I still meet people [who say], ‘I read about you in the paper.’ The song kinda wrote itself.”
The new track serves as a single for an upcoming new EP, Fruition. “I wanted to tell moments of vindication in my career and felt like ‘Dear Willamette Week, Pt. 2′ [fit] the album,” Mandela says. “Just the whole [Best New Bands] experience was life-changing, from the showcase to everyone that saw it.”
The EP arrives Oct. 25, Mandela’s birthday. The release show will take place the same day at Abide (formerly The Big L).
See the full music video below: