Scream My Name is latest single from Juno Valdez

Maltese singer/songwriter Juno Valdez has dropped her latest single, Scream My Name, a fresh urban pop number, with producer Jean Claude Vancell.

The track was mixed and mastered by Billboard Hot 100 No #1 New York engineer Wizard Lee.

“This track is exactly one half me and one half Jean Claude Vancell, my creative partner in crime since we met at St Aloysius 17 years ago,” Valdez said.

The singer said that Scream My Name is a song that personified lust, as illustrated through the title. “It’s a shameless, flirtatious song but also demure-at-times, go-between raw attraction and sexual tension,” she said.

Valdez said that once the song was ready, she felt something was missing – locally, there was no studio she thought had a real urban edge. “Still in my rapper 6ix9ine obsession, I wrote to his studio in New York on a whim. At the time, his track ‘TROLLZ’ with Nikki Minaj was all over the radios. I did not expect anyone to write back... they never do,” Valdez explained.

The singer said about a week later, she got an email saying they liked the track and would be happy to work on it. “Now I was sure it was a scam. I suppose I got really lucky because it really was him, the man who has Platinum Number One’s in his discography really did mix and master our track himself, to perfection,” she said.

The track itself features a unique watermark, as Valdez pushed her writing boundaries breaking into a rap middle section.

Not just another music video

To Juno, the track’s music video isn’t just another music video, it is a performance celebrating the culmination of human existence.

“Few people know that just four months before that video was shot, I underwent major surgery, so the video mostly represented the immense wonder of the human body’s power in healing itself and coming full circle, springing back in a healthy summer tan and dancing playfully around a basketball court.”

Valdez said she found herself writing the storyboard and doing a lot of its production, which she had not realised she could do until she did it.

“That is what music is to me, a safe space which allows me to run free, creatively, happily. And when you are there, building on something that you built that came from nothing, you catch a glimpse of the infinite creative potential that lies in us all, be it to build a song or an empire. There is that magic in us. I truly believe that.”

The music video also features basketball player from Malta’s national team, Matthew Scerri, and black belt / DJ Andrew Barthet.