We first covered Bella Rios back in January when she dropped ‘Hold On’ with electronic producer mulsh, and I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t already obsessed. But now the video is out and we need to talk about it, because this is a whole different experience. We knew she had the vocals. What we didn’t know was that she’d take the whole thing to the Sahara and make it feel like the only logical place it could have ever been shot.
Before we get there let me set something up. I went through a stretch a few years ago where I was white-knuckling through a semester abroad that had completely gone sideways – a new country with no real friends yet and a situationship back home that was already unraveling by text. You know that feeling where you’re not in crisis exactly but you’re also definitely not okay? I kept replaying conversations looking for where things cracked but nothing made sense. ‘Hold On’ drops straight into that headspace, and if you haven’t had yours yet, just wait.
The track is built around a whole fucking world falling apart in real time. “Foundations are crumbling” and “fire is raining” and the whole thing reads like the universe is having a public meltdown. Dark waves, falling stars, a weather report from the end of the world. And underneath all of it, this one repeating plea: hold on to me. That’s it. Two people in the middle of total annihilation choosing each other as the fixed point.
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mulsh, whose real name is Colin Mulshine, has talked about how the beat started as a remix concept for a Tim Legend track called ‘Telescope.’ He finished it and said, “I immediately thought of Bella and she crushed it.” And he’s right. But here’s what he also said that I can’t stop thinking about: “This instrumental doesn’t have too many components. Simplicity is bliss.” That philosophy is all over the final product. The glitchy synths and that pulsating bassline complement her voice perfectly letting her be the chaos and the calm at the same time.
Now. The video.
Shot at the edge of the Sahara with the Great Pyramids of Giza as the backdrop, this thing is stunning as hell. We’re talking ancient stone meeting futuristic sound, camels wandering through what feels like a fever dream of old world and new world colliding. The sweeping visuals against those pulsing synths should not work as well as they do. Because the song is about permanence in the middle of collapse and what’s more permanent than the Pyramids? They’ve survived centuries of empires rising and collapsing around them and they’re still standing which is the whole fucking point.
And Bella Rios in that setting? She fits the landscape completely. The sultry exotic energy of the location matches her presence in a way that feels almost like the desert was waiting for her. She carries herself with the same kind of ancient confidence the setting demands. There’s something genuinely seductive about a woman who looks that at home in a place that ancient and that untameable.
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Bella started on classical piano at five years old in Chicago, grew up on Queen, Fleetwood Mac, and Aerosmith, then made Adele and Lady Gaga her own as her voice started taking shape. She landed in Nashville where she’s been building something that doesn’t fit neatly into any one box. Pop-rock with EDM instincts and a vocal range that goes from barely-a-whisper sultry to full-throated powerhouse without warning. The Princeton economics degree got her here. Nashville is where the real work happens.
I thought about that semester abroad while watching this video and how when everything around you is crumbling the only real anchor is another person who’s also refusing to let go. The Pyramids in the background are proof that some things hold. Rios figured that out and put it in a song with a beat that makes you want to move your whole body, and then shot the video in the most visually arresting place on earth to prove the point. The shit works.
Check out the video right here:
