Kendra Brea Cooper
David Guetta's "One Voice" music video was created to support the United Nation's "The World Needs More" Campaign. He ties his song in with twitter hashtags which are meant to raise awareness about last years typhoon in the Philippines (the video came out in 2013) as well as many other global issues. The video is nominated for best social message at the MTV Video Music Awards this year.
The introductions to this video start off with the hashtags # theworldneedsmore and #yourworld. Hashtag politics are a sure fire way of getting the message and your message out over social media. It's an ongoing conversation, with tweets piled on top of each other, leading towards a trending story and sometimes a news story. What's interesting though, is the news story isn't what we turn to, we log on to twitter first to see what is being said before anyone rounds it up for a television clip.
David Guetta has the platform as a famous electronic artist with the ability to bring large crowds of people together. Music festivals stuff people side by side in order to share and experience together. It's symbolic in what we can do and how we can feel in large groups, especially when one experience can make a group of strangers feel like a community.
The video flips clips of people dancing all over the world, in privileged areas like a music festival, to areas affected by war, disaster, and exploitation. While it's important to remember that clips of dancing don't erase the politics and struggles behind the moment, dancing has a way of connecting us. It's movement as response, a language of celebration and art right through the human body.
This entire video is threaded with words. Words are heavier than we think, and they're usually taken for granted. They spark feelings and images, and carry behind them histories in all the ways each word has been used in language. This means a word can be over used for different reasons and agendas, like "peace" for example, especially when it's single and taken out of context. The words in this video are connected to a campaign an larger brands behind it, which could mean the words shift in meaning.
Of course this wasn't a video made free of all the world around it. The United Nations is part of this music video, as the entire video is in support of the UN's "The World Needs More" campaign. Each word in the video is tweet-able and attached to the UN, and all the sponsors behind the campaign.
Much of this video moves quickly in between clips of people all over the world. They remind me of detached news clips because they leave out (and this is also because of technique) the real politics behind what is going on. These politics are complicated and possibly too controversial for a David Guetta music video.
Guetta's image of someone who brings people together through music landed him this collaboration with the UN. Music often intersects with other aspects of culture, and songs float around having meaning attached to them by many sources. This is especially true when a song has a broad and ambiguous concept like "love".
On November 22, 2013, this video was projected onto the UN Secretariat Building in New York. They launched a campaign to raise money for the relief fund after the typhoon in the Philippines, and a dollar was raised for every tweet. Tweets might make us feel connected and aware, but tweeting to raise money is just part of change, there are many factors that lead to the need for aid.
David Guetta has been a DJ for close to 30 years and he is certainly one of the most recognized musicians in the world. His music hasn't always been about activism and awareness, so the party is different this time around.
Mikky Ekko is "just a guy who sings" from the southern states. He's most recognized from his part in "Stay" with Rihanna. Obviously, he has a bright and musical future ahead of him.
Pop culture and all that ideology sitting in the blind spot. Also crafts.
