Obama music video: “Yes We Can”
I’d never seen anything like this before (I learned about it after reading a post at SoupyTrumpet). It’s a song based on a speech Barack Obama delivered in New Hampshire on January 8, 2008. The music is performed by will.i.am of the rap group Black Eyed Peas, assisted by a large ensemble:
Jesse Dylan, Common, Scarlett Johansson, Herbie Hancock, Tatyana Ali, Nick Cannon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Legend, Kate Walsh, Aisha Tyler, Amber Valletta, Taryn Manning, Nicole Scherzinger, Adam Rodriguez, Alfonso Ribeiro, Austin Nichols, Ed Kowalczyk, Eric Balfour, Esthero, Harold Perrineau, Johnathon Schaech, Kelly Hu, Maya Rubin, and Tracee Ellis Ross.
The video was obviously the result of an incredible job of editing, as well as a highly coordinated performance. Somehow, despite all of the technical hurdles faced by the performers and technicians, the video is also, at its core, musical. I’m not the only one impressed; the video has more than one million views on YouTube, despite being posted a couple days ago.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY[/youtube]
[Note: SoupyTrumpet http://soupytrumpet.com/ is a new site run by the designer of this site, Nick Smith.]
Of course, what Latinos and others familiar with “la causa” hear is the United Farmworkers’ slogan “Sí, se puede!”
This is bound to be seen as a threat to those who aren’t comfortable with the idea of poor manual laborers having rights or political power:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200801160010
Maybe O’Bama is consciously opening his arms to the many Spanish speaking Americans who have been harshly rejected by the GOP. For instance, see this Feb 7, 2008 article from Rolling Stone
For the full article, go here.