William James Adams, Jr., better known by his stage name will.i.am, was one of the founding members of the Black Eyed Peas. Early this year, will.i.am wrote the song, "Yes We Can", in support of the presidential campaign of Barack Obama and within a week the song had been seen more than 7 million times on Dipdive and YouTube. Composed almost entirely of excerpts from Obama's speech following the New Hampshire primary, the video featured guest appearances by Scarlett Johansson, Tatyana Ali, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Common amongst others, and it quickly made will.i.am the new spokesman for a politically involved post civil rights black generation.
This week, will.i.am released this new song, “It’s a New Day”, which I'm happy to post as the weekend video. I think it speaks for itself!
4 comments:
sigh* it's good. There's a NAS/Tupac remix with Obama as well which makes me cry it's so good. I am almost scared to say this and I'm not sure why but I am a proud American. Wow, I cringe just typing it ...it's been so long.
Have a great weekend!
Cool.
Thanks for this post, it makes me feel more hopeful in a tough time. The high school that I work at had a racism incident, and I don't feel it was taken seriously enough. I am white, and male, and affluent; and am inspired by Barak. I told my students today that if we don't make a statement against racism, it tells everyone that it is o.k. I told my students that they have a powerful voice that the world wants and needs to hear. I hope they use it. Their adult leaders are not using theirs.
Will.i.am.a.Fan
I really do love the weekend videos - I may not always have time to watch them, but for me they complement the photography on the blog - like we are watching some of the themes leap off the page.
I've also discovered new music on the videos, which I love (I adored the utube images of the summer song - so sweet and fun).
Thank you for your blog and happy birthday!
Thank you! As I was watching this and thinking about the impact of the first Yes We Can video, and now this, I thought to myself, "will.i.am is a national treasure." Then I immediately backpedalled in my head, because "national treasure" is one of those cheesy phrases that jingoistic conservatives typically use. But then I thought, NO! Patriotism belongs to everyone now! I've been having moments like this ever since last January. I'm looking forward to fully shedding that embittered baggage. Things like this video help.
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