Alicia Keys has released a beautiful, heartfelt new song and music video calling for unity, strength and love in the wake of Ferguson protests. The video includes heavy Ferguson-related imagery – like photographs of police officers confronting protestors – combined with archive footage of Ghandi, Martin Luther King and some famous quotes from these iconic civil rights activists. Keys released the video on Twitter this week following the grand jury’s decision in New York not to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo for the chokehold death of Eric Garner.
(To watch this video in Creation 5, just tap here.)
She told the New York Times that she wrote the song after being moved by the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Garner in New York, who both died at the hands of white policemen. “We absolutely feel disregarded as human beings,” said the 33-year-old singer. And even though Keys is 9 months pregnant with her second child she expects to join the protests on the ground. “We will continue to be loud,” she said. “I hope that this is our 21st-century civil rights movement. You shouldn’t be surprised if you see me out there. The most important thing is that we look at each other and see these magnificent beings that can create the changes and movements we dream of,” she said.
J.Cole also released a song in response to the situation in Ferguson called Be Free – but while his song is wholly despairing, Keys mixes sentiments of strength and faith and declarations of self-affirmation that brings a hopeful message, “We are extraordinary people / Living ordinary lives.”
We Gotta Pray is a completely homemade production – “I recorded the song in a room one night, all alone,” the R&B superstar said. The song is currently at Nº6 on the Billboard + Twitter Trending 140.
