Ben Schamisso
'This Is America' â How Musicians Add Perspective To Social Issues
Childish Gambino's music video for "This Is America" offers perspectives, not solutions, for gun violence.
LEARN MORESeptember 25, 2018
The Black Eyed Peas are back, and their new music video is as political as it gets. The video for their new song "Big Love" shows a fictional school shooting and re-enactments of migrant families being arrested at the border.
If seeing kids with emergency blankets brings back memories, it's because it was replicated from this widely seen footage.
Back in June, this government video of migrants sitting in cells at a Texas detention facility quickly became the unflattering face of the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" policy. Trump himself cited the footage as a reason why he eventually ended the practice of separating families after they were caught crossing the U.S. border illegally.
A month before The Black Eyed Peas recreated that footage, rapper Logic did the exact same thing in the music video for his song "One Day." That re-enactment went beyond just showing migrants in detention.
Its opening scene showing a migrant who's forced to give her young child to border agents is, of course, reminiscent of actual photos captured last summer.
A few days after publishing that music video, Logic performed "One Day" at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards with dozens of immigrant parents and children onstage.
Obviously, there's a long tradition of songwriters, especially rappers, using their music to analyze, protest and comment on social issues. But the fact that multiple well-known musicians have decided to re-enact similar scenes confirms that the separation of families at the border will be remembered as a defining moment of the year.
The images of children in cells and the leaked audio of these kids crying for their parents prompted some of the largest protests of the year. That, in turn, led to an increase in the number of Americans — both liberals and conservatives — who said they saw immigration as the nation's top problem.
More Americans Than Ever Say Immigration Is The Top Problem In The US
Yet, the number of migrants picked up at the border is the lowest it's been in 17 years. Is the border crisis hyped?
LEARN MOREAnd while the nation's attention has somewhat turned away from separated migrant families, more than 400 kids remain in government-run shelters without their parents.
That's either because their parents were deported without them or because the government is concerned that their parents may pose a danger to them.
As for Logic, he said of his video: "Making music is fun, but music with a message is so more important!!!"
And The Black Eyed Peas announced proceeds from their song will benefit the March for Our Lives organization, which advocates for gun control, and Families Belong Together, which protests against the Trump administration's immigration policies. The video ends with a message encouraging viewers to vote.
