Category: Artist Statement

My hack is called “Vote With Your Feed” a project that critically examines the evolution of political messaging in the US, particularly how campaign slogans and platforms have transformed over time to influence voters through emotion, media, and more recently social media algorithms. My central critique is how political messaging has evolved from collective persuasion to individualized algorithmic influence, showing how campaign slogans and election media targets the audience through algorithms and user generated content. Throughout time, political communication has become increasingly emotional, manipulative, and personalized. This project asks what it means to vote in this day and age. By pulling from historical campaign materials, archival media, and contemporary TikToks, I explore how the strategies of persuasion in US politics have changed.

This remix draws on footage and media from 3 distinct time periods: the postwar 1950s (the Eisenhower campaign), the late 1980s (the Bush “Willie Horton” ad and election night radio coverage), and the current decade (TikToks and 2024 campaign ads). It also blends two different media types, video and sound, to reveal how forms of voter influence and engagement shift depending on the tools of the era. My remix breaks the rule of using 3 source materials, and I justify this rule break because today, everything is digitized, hence video and sound are more compelling. Other forms of media such as print and text, do not have the same engagement, reach, and worldliness that video and sound do. I decided to only use video content such as the poll places, past election campaign ads, events in the political sphere, as well as TikTok clips in order to emphasize the effect of modern political media. By using videos as the main form of media, I am able to focus on exemplifying digital media at its purest form. I remixed this hack to jump cut back and forth between different time periods and campaign videos, as I cut videos in different parts and mismatched combined them together.

To show how political influence has evolved, I juxtaposed archival campaign materials with modern media. The 1952 “I Like Ike” ad, an orchestrated and cheerful jingle promoting Dwight Eisenhower designed for TV audiences, marks a turning point in American politics as it is catchy, cartoonish, and optimistic, emphasizing personality over policy. Its jingle was mass consumed, and mass approved by citizens, setting the standard for all future campaign marketing. These kinds of slogans like “I Like Ike” built mass persuasiveness through communal identity and optimism through simplicity and repetition.

In contrast, the 1988 “Willie Horton” ad reflects a darker, more manipulative approach to persuasion. The Bush campaign used fear to shape public opinion. While “I Like Ike” sought unity, this ad weaponized difference, and narratives of crime, fear, and national identity were constructed and spread through mainstream media. The shift in tone between these decades highlights how American political discourse moved from optimism to divisive. Through tapping into fear, racial tension, and trauma, this campaign successfully provoked emotional response and votes.

Finally, the Trump MAGA ad from 2024 shows a return to grand catchy slogans (ex. Make America Great Again) and uses nostalgia and anger. Rather than persuasive logic, it’s almost entirely emotional. When I contrast this ad with modern TikToks, including those supporting Trump and Kamala Harris, I found a dynamic where politicians no longer need to persuade mass audiences. They target algorithmic spheres with niches such as Trump supporters and Kamala supporters. Engagement and virality have become new metrics of political success, and Trump even gives credit to TikTok for his election success.

The TikToks I selected range from user generated political propaganda, funny memes and compilations, and other random clips that have come across my for you page during the election. This reflects how political discourse can be turned into trends and performance. The Kamala TikToks, for instance, use popular sounds and dance trends to portray her as “relatable,” while Trump’s TikTok edits lean into personality or funny compilations. While mediums have evolved from TV ads to short form TikTok videos, the nature of the campaign ads remain the same, which is to persuade. It is interesting to look at how especially in this election, campaigns heavily use digital social media platforms, creating content that feels authentic and personal, but can at times distort or oversimplify the reality of the world or candidates.

The purpose of this hack is to show how persuasion changes based on media platforms, such as simple and catchy jingles to algorithmic videos. In my opinion, “I Like Ike” was designed for everyone, and on the other hand MAGA memes or Kamala TikToks are algorithmically curated per user. I am critiquing how the voter experience has shifted, from showing up as a participant in a democratic event (1960s polling footage) to being influenced and persuaded well before voting begins, through algorithmically curated content that blurs authenticity, identity, and manipulation (2024 TikToks about the election). In this remix I have mismatched the clips to go back and forth between each time period, capturing the evolution of political candidates, their campaigns, as well as TikTok memes that adds layers of irony, sarcasm, and humor in a more serious sphere. This transition shows that democracy today happens through for you pages, arguments in the comments, and user generated content.

What inspired this was the current state of US politics and how many people say that politics is just entertainment.  This remix suggests the platform that politics have and use now is media, as more than ever, campaigns are curated and targeted. TikTok brings humor, anger, and relatability, which changes traditional campaign strategies into a loop of viral content. This shift can be seen through the juxtaposition of the videos from different time periods. By placing historical media alongside TikTok videos, I aimed to highlight this shift in how the desire to persuade the audience has not changed, rather the use of platform. The feedback loop of TikTok prioritizes quick reactions, not fulfilling arguments. This dynamic changes not only how voters engage, but how candidates craft their image. It is interesting to think about the motivations behind each post. Another interesting notion was the idea of remix as recovery. I have never seen many of the archival footage from past campaigns, and by giving these materials new life, I did what this assignment calls “the beauty of second use”, and these sources are historical evidence, reused in a different context.

In conclusion, Vote With Your Feed is a media remix that investigates the evolving scope of political persuasion. By drawing on campaign materials from 1952 to 2024, polling place footage from the 1960s to today, and viral TikToks, this project challenges the viewer to rethink how voting, influence, and performance intersect in modern life remixing the old with the contemporary. It is a remix of history, emotion, and algorithms.

Citations:

1960 B/W A voter placing his ballot at a polling station, Getty Images, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/voter-placing-his-ballot-at-a-polling-station-stock-video-footage/mr_00060856?adppopup=true

CU, PAN, Row of voting booths, St. Marys, Ohio, USA, Getty Images, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/row-of-voting-booths-st-marys-ohio-usa-stock-video-footage/85184111

Americans voting in an election, Getty Images, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/americans-voting-in-an-election-stock-footage/1959111546?adppopup=true

Extreme close-up macro video of a ballpoint pen filling in a mail-in voting ballot at home for Presidential, Senatorial, Congressional, or local election, Getty Images, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/extreme-close-up-macro-video-of-a-ballpoint-pen-filling-stock-footage/1762005219?adppopup=true

I Voted Today, Getty Images, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/voted-today-stock-footage/2160034819?adppopup=true

Eisenhower ‘I Like Ike’ ad (1952), The Living Room Candidate, https://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1952

Bush ‘Willie Horton’ ad (1988), C-Span, https://www.c-span.org/program/vignette/bush-campaign-commercial/97662

Trump MAGA ad (2024), Donald J. Trump, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OVOSIQOfpM

brett.tunechi, TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8j2mGua/

tpaction_, TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8j2SwVP/

yk000, TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8j2SPum/

mxwlch03, TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8j2Ajqx/

team.kamala_harris, TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8j2kggM/

historyeditz, TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8j2hNES/

1988 Election Night, Part 1, Dan Rather Journalist, https://danratherjournalist.org/political-analyst/election-coverage/1988-election/compilation-1988-election-night-materials/video.html

RuPaul’s Drag Race has been one of my favorite tv shows since middle school. I have always been in awe of the different queens’ abilities to explore fashion, humor, and performance. It is through the show that I was first introduced to what it means to be ‘camp.’ A concept I continued to be fascinated by through my freshman year writing 101, Bad Art. In this class, we read Susan Sontag’s iconic essay Notes on Camp, and discussed how viewing art through a camp lens allows us to find new meaning and appreciation to what high culture would view as bad or lacking in value. In this class, I was inspired by some of the ideas we explored when learning about radical play in thinking about how it connects to camp culture because they both incorporate playfulness as a way of commentary. I think these ideas as particularly expressed through drag, where engaging with camp serves as a rebellion to society’s cultural norms which are historically exclusionary to queer culture.

This exclusion is particularly seen through the actions of the Trump administration and the conservative agenda which seeks to eliminate LGBTQ+ language from books in school and stop the performances of Drag Queens across the country. However, this reality is somewhat ironic because many conservative politicians, like Trump, are somewhat camp figures and I argue are comparable to drag queens themselves. The theatricality of politics and performative nature of their inherently lends itself to camp culture. This inspired my remix project, Camp Figures, where my goal was to playfully point to how Trump’s actions are similar to that of drag queens through clips placing them in the same context.  In this way, I hoped to create a video that is both fun to watch, while still criticizing Trump and his actions. 

I began my remix with RuPaul explaining the definition of ‘Camp’ to Stephen Colbert because I thought this was a necessary contextualization considering it is a rather complex topic. In her essay, Notes on Camp, Susan Sontag explains how camp is “a sensibility that is as difficult to define as it is easy to identify.” This is something I particularly relate to because it is easy to point to something at camp, but the act of verbalizing why is always difficult. Even in Sontag’s essay, there are many instances where she contradicts herself. I wanted my video to be accessible to a wide variety of audiences, which is why I chose to try and make camp a more attainable and clear concept for viewers to grasp. 

To further demystify the confusing nature of camp, I chose to include three different Sontag quotes throughout the remix from Notes on Camp. While this essay has faced a lot of criticism since it was published in 1964, I think it is a necessary text to begin to understand what it means to be camp. I was mindful to choose quotes that I thought were easy to relate to the actions of Trump and the drag queens featured in the video. 

After RuPaul explains camp and the viewer sees the first Sontag quote, the remix features a series of drag queens strutting and posing down a runway to Rupaul’s song, Hustle that Cat. Then, at a dramatic moment in the music, a mysterious figure comes out from behind a curtain, only to reveal it is Donald Trump, who then struts down a carpet. I was purposeful to have Trump’s sudden emergence surprise the audience through having no clear context beforehand on what the video would be about. I thought this would contribute to the humor of the video and also would give the audience an aha moment, when they think back to RuPaul saying politicians should go to drag shows. I also thought the dramaticness of this reveal would contribute to the over the top campy editing style I tried to utilize to fit with my overall theme.   

After the reveal, begins a series of video clips that alternate between Donald Trump and drag queens from Rupaul’s Drag Race. All of the drag queen videos come from one video I found from the most current season of one of the runway challenges. I spliced the video into sections to show a variety of queens being silly and over the top as they strut down the runway in their elaborate costumes. In contrast, I searched tiktok and youtube for a variety of clips of Trump dramatically strutting and performing silly actions like when he solitarily gets off of an airplane or hugs and kisses an american flag. One of my favorite comparisons was my clip of a series of drag queens sipping from straws and then including a photo of Trump wide-eyed and funnily sipping diet coke. It is through these back and forth comparisons that I tried to convey that there are direct similarities to be found with Trump and Drag Queens. 

I also included a video I found from 2000 of Trump flirting with Rudy Giuliani in drag. This video helped emphasize that Trump himself is not that removed from drag because he has actively engaged with it. When this video came out, it served as a way of mocking women and queerness. However, in the context of the remix, where the clip is surrounded by other drag queens, the joke gets put on Trump and Giuliani as it further proves that they are like individuals they wish to be distanced from. 

In addition to the video clips, I also included a variety of Trump’s social media posts from X and Truth Social. I thought these were necessary to include because one of the ways Trump is most associated with being outrageous is through his posts on these platforms. It was easy to find lists online of some of the craziest and most outlandish tweets because he has posted so many. I tried to choose tweets that I thought were something I could see a queen saying on RuPaul’s Drag Race, but in that context the sentiment would have been completely performative. In the case of Trump, these tweets are also quite performative to his audience, but not in the same intentional way as the drag queens. 

The backing track to my remix is the song ‘Hustle that Cat’ which is a Rupaul song that is used as the runway song in the most recent season of RuPaul’s Drag Race.This made sense as the song because it is iconic to anyone who is a big fan of the tv show. In addition, the message of the song is about having ambition and working hard to achieve your goals, yet the lyrics argue that in order to achieve this success you must “put your whole kitty in it.” This language was particularly relevant because it speaks to harnessing one’s inherent femininity. Specifically in relation to Trump, I felt like the lyrics respond to what he said on the leaked Access Hollywood Tape. Through having Trump ‘strut and pose’ to this song, it demonstrates Trump playing into his femininity, this same femininity he feels entitled to taking advantage of in others. 

In the middle of the remix, I include a clip from Larry King’s show, where a famous drag queen explains how she and Trump have more in common than one would realize. This was one of quite  a few pieces of media I found where drag queens compare themselves to Trump. This was notable because while the drag community seems to find humor in the fact that Trump is somewhat like them, this remix would have outraged Trump. This speaks to the importance of camp in acting as a way for people to find meaning in the not serious and how humor and irony are methods of political statement. Trump himself  is not able to really understand how he acts as a camp figure, which on one hand makes him more camp, ​​but it also gives those who do engage with camp a unique way to critique him outside of his awareness.

In regards to breaking one of the rules, I broke rule #2 that states the source material must come from at least three distinct time periods. Technically, I did break rule #4 because upon completion I realized I used content from 3 different eras (1960s, 2000s, & 2020s), but I did this completely unintentionally. When I began my remix, I was mindful of breaking rule #2 because I believe Trump is very specific to our current cultural moment, so I wanted to mainly utilize content from the same time period. Also because my method of comparison of him and drag queens is already rather upfront, I didn’t want to overcomplicate my message by creating comparisons over time as well. 

A hesitation I had with my project is that it paints Trump as a joke, yet the realities of his administration remain deeply serious. I did not want the message to be that we do not have to be concerned about Trump’s policies because he engages in camp performance. Labeling Trump as ‘camp’ is not the solution for those of us who disagree with his administration, as camp is not designed to solve life’s problems. Instead, labeling Trump as camp reveals how the very subcultures his administration seeks to suppress find ironic empowerment in the fact that he, unwittingly, embodies aspects of them.

In this current day and age, when prompted with mentions of “contemporary cultural concern,” my thoughts gravitate toward technology. I’d like to think that this hack completes some sort of a technological trilogy in my previous hacks: my first hack addressed short-form content’s impact on attention spans; my second examined the exploitation of resources for technological advancement; and now this piece offers a reflection on technological evolution and the phenomenon of what I like to call “compressed time.”

I’ve attributed Gen Z’s fascination with the past to our position as “Digital Natives” – those who have grown up with technology and the internet as integral parts of our lives. Unlike previous generations who witnessed the gradual introduction of new technologies, we were born into an already-digital world that continues to accelerate at an unprecedented pace. This creates a unique paradox where we experience nostalgia for technologies that existed barely a decade ago.

This compressed nostalgia exists because our technological environment evolves at a pace never before experienced in human history. When devices or interfaces that defined our childhood become obsolete within 3-5 years rather than decades, nostalgia accelerates correspondingly. The traditional time required for something to become “vintage” or “retro” has collapsed for our generation. What once took 20-30 years to become nostalgic now takes a mere 5-10 years, creating a temporal dissonance unique to our generational experience.

Consider how rapidly the smartphone evolution occurred: from the revolutionary first iPhone (2007) to the refined iPhone 4 (2010) to the larger-screened iPhone 6 (2014). Each represented not just incremental improvements but distinct cultural moments. The original iPhone’s interface with its glossy buttons and realistic textures created an entirely different emotional response than the design introduced with iOS 7 in 2013. Apple’s iOS 6 featured realistic leather textures, paper fibers, and drop shadows that mimicked physical objects, while iOS 7 suddenly eliminated these in favor of minimalist, flat design principles. Microsoft made a similar leap from the dimensional Aero interface to the completely flat Metro UI in Windows 8. Yet both exist within the same compressed decade, each evoking its own form of nostalgia.

The implications of this compression create both challenges and opportunities for Digital Natives. Unlike Millennials who largely share memories of the same technologies spanning their childhood and adolescence, Gen Z’s technological memories vary dramatically even among those born just 3-4 years apart. A person born in 1997 might remember MySpace and Windows XP, while someone born in 2005 has never known a world without iPhones. This creates a sort of mini generational divide within Gen Z itself.

I have taken some time to reflect on potential positives of this. In particular, I believe that being a generation experiencing technological acceleration, we may be equipped to navigate the inevitable disruptions of the future. Perhaps our nostalgia for rapidly obsolete technologies isn’t trivial, but functions as a necessary emotional processing of constant change. We’ve developed a sort of resilience to technological evolution that previous generations had to acquire more gradually. When multiple “eras” of technology can exist within a single decade (from the iPod in 2003 to the Apple Watch in 2014), our very concept of what constitutes a historical period requires reconsideration. 

To explore this phenomenon, I deliberately focused my remix on a compressed time frame (2003-2014) that demonstrates how rapidly technology evolved during Gen Z’s formative years. By beginning with McCullough’s critique of Frutiger Aero nostalgia, I acknowledge skepticism about the legitimacy of Gen Z’s nostalgic impulses. His perspective represents an older generation’s view that our nostalgia is somehow less authentic because of its compressed timeframe.

The technology timeline that follows serves as my counterargument, employing what Virginia Kuhn calls “digital argument” – “using remixed elements to make claims and provide evidence.” By documenting the rapid succession of technological changes within this brief period, I demonstrate how our generation experienced multiple “eras” within a decade. Each technological shift represents not just a product release, but a distinct cultural moment with its own aesthetic language, behavioral norms, and emotional associations.

Kenneth Goldsmith’s concept of “textual ecosystem” helps explain our relationship with technological interfaces. Just as he observes that all digital media is ultimately composed of text-based code beneath its surface, our timeline reveals that seemingly superficial interface changes actually represent profound shifts in our digital experience. Each interface pattern functions as an environment of interaction that generates its own nostalgic response. This approach to remix allows me to construct what Goldsmith would call an “uncreative” perspective – one that reveals truth precisely by reframing existing material rather than generating original content. As he argues in “Uncreative Writing,” the most profound insights often come not from creating new material, but from reconfiguring what already exists. My work arranging these technologies across a compressed timeline creates meaning through context and arrangement rather than original creation.

I found the evolution within this technology timeline to be especially evident in UI design trends. The progression from Windows XP (2004) with its rounded buttons and nature imagery, to Vista’s (2007) translucent “Aero” design, to Windows 7’s (2009) refined transparency, to Windows 8’s (2012) radical flat tiles wasn’t merely aesthetic evolution. Each represented a fundamentally different “language” through which we interacted with technology, creating different emotional imprints and cultural associations.

These design languages reflect broader cultural shifts as well. The glossy, reflective surfaces of Vista’s Aero interface embodied early-2000s optimism about technology – transparent, impressive, but still somewhat separate from daily life. The “flattening” n in the early 2010s coincided with technology becoming more invisible, seamless, and integrated into every aspect of our lives. The interface became less about impressing the user and more about disappearing into the background of our lives.

Within my remix, I wanted to add to this evolution. I thought this would emphasize how “long ago” these bits of technology felt. I deliberately applied a film grain effect to the early footage that gradually lessens and eventually disappears as the timeline advances toward 2014. This visual technique serves as a metaphor for technological advancement – the “old” grainy footage giving way to the crisp, clean aesthetic of newer technologies. The evolution of the video itself mirrors the evolution of the technologies it documents, my editing style helping communicate the general message of the entire work.

I found that my relationship with technology provides an emotional foundation for this remix. I’ve always gauged time by the technologies present at different moments of my life – getting my first computer at age 7, receiving my iPhone 6s in 7th grade (2015), and upgrading to the iPhone SE2 in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. Because of how I gauge time, this project has forced me to examine whether my nostalgia is genuinely about the products and technologies themselves or about the developmental stages they represent. Perhaps I’m not nostalgic for Windows Vista’s button design so much as I’m nostalgic for the person I was when those interfaces framed my experiences.

This personal technological timeline exists within a broader context of accelerated obsolescence that shapes our entire generation’s relationship with the past. The rapid succession of devices, interfaces, and digital environments has created layers of technological memory that accumulate at unprecedented rates. Our generation doesn’t just experience nostalgia for distant childhood memories, but for the continuous parade of technological eras that have defined even our recent past.

When we express nostalgia for iOS 6’s skeuomorphic design or Windows Vista’s Aero interface, we’re not just fixating on superficial aesthetics. We’re also processing the emotional impact of constant technological disruption and transformation. Our nostalgia serves as a psychological mechanism for integrating these rapid changes into our sense of self and history.

By cataloging and arranging these technological markers, I’m engaging in what is Goldsmith’s “uncreative writing” – finding value not in originality but in selection, arrangement, and framing of existing materials. The juxtaposition allows me to make an argument about Gen Z nostalgia that would be impossible through traditional creative expression alone. Through this remix, I hope to validate the authenticity of “compressed time” and nostalgia, while exploring its characteristics in our accelerated digital age.

I’ve concluded that our nostalgia isn’t a shallow or premature response to recent technologies, but a necessary adaptation to technological acceleration. By acknowledging and examining this phenomenon, we gain insight not just into our relationship with specific technologies but into how technology shapes our very experience of time, memory, and generational identity in the digital age.

Ideally, I would have tied in the advancements in AI, and how the increase in ability for these AI systems has been exponential. However, I wasn’t quite sure how to add this into the video as I was focused much more on hardware and design, and not so much the ability of a chatting interface. This may be something to explore outside of the class though, looking at how AI will affect younger generations in the long run.

Find the hack here or watch below.

References:

Gillis, Alexander S. “Digital Native.” TechTarget, 8 Dec. 2020, https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/digital-native.

Goldsmith, Kenneth. Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age. Columbia University Press, 2011.

Kuhn, Virginia. “The Rhetoric of Remix.” Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 9, 15 Mar. 2012, https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2012.0358.

“Where words fail, music speaks”

– Hans Christan Andersen, 19th century Danish author

Music has, and will always be, the medium that represents the human condition and innate creativity. While other creative mediums certainly allow self expression and representation, music remains special for its ability to move emotions beyond visual practices. Whether through rich oral traditions like Griots or through angsty breakup-pop songs, music creates a platform that allows those who listen to participate firsthand in the feelings, emotions, and experiences of an artist. Thus, music has been used for generations to advocate for groups, allowing voices to be heard and stories to be told. 

For my Hack #4: Remix, I tapped into this inherent quality of music to create a product that pays homage to legendary songs of advocacy throughout different time periods. By using Logic Pro, a digital audio workstation, I combined and remixed the tracks “What’s Going On” (1971) by Marvin Gaye, “This is America” (2018) by Childish Gambino / Donald Glover, and “Water No Get Enemy” (1975) by Fela Kuti. These three songs all share a common theme of using music as a way of fighting oppression and injustice caused by institutionalized racism, prejudice, and government corruption. It is important to note that despite their different time periods, historical contexts, genres, and styles, music gave these artists a platform to spread awareness and advocate for the oppressed. 

In 1971, Marvin Gaye, one of the most influential and important musical figures of history for his contributions to Motown and Soul, released arguably his most important project, What’s Going On. The album instantly gained attraction for its heart-wrenching melodies, applicable lyrics, and emotional grip, giving it both commercial and critical attention. The title track (by the same name) was mostly responsible for this overwhelming success. It topped the Hot Soul Singles chart for five consecutive weeks, remained at number two on Billboard Hot 100, and was ranked number four on the Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time magazine in 2004. What mainly inspired this single (and project as a whole) was through an experience with police brutality in People’s Park (Berkeley, California). On May 15th, 1969, Renaldo “Obie” Benson, a member of the Motown group, the Four Tops, encountered police brutality against anti-war activists who were holding a protest for the Vietnam War. Struck and bothered by what he saw, Benson wrote and composed a song about love and understanding in response, which he then presented to Marvin Gaye. Gaye then altered the song, adding new lyrics and melodies, forming it into a narrative rather than simply another musical track. Eventually, the track became just as monumental to Gaye as he had been inspired to advocate against war and hatred upon hearing emotional stories from his brother Frankie Gaye, who had served three years during the Vietnam War. Some lyrics that reflect these feelings include:

“You see, war is not the answer

For only love can conquer hate

You know we’ve got to find a way

To bring some lovin’ here today

Picket lines and picket signs

Don’t punish me with brutality”

Similarly, “This is America” by Childish Gambino uses tactics of music and art to advocate against hate and societal inequalities. In 2018, Childish Gambino, or Donald Glover, released this gripping single alongside one of pop culture’s most famous music videos. Both the single and the music video gained instant traction with over 12 million views / listens in the first 24 hours and over 950 millions views to date. It won all four of its nominations at the 61st annual Grammys: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Rap Performance, and Best Music Video. Its popularity was not only due to its catchy rhythms, melodies, and bassy instrumental, but its reflections on the Black Lives Matter Movement, systemic racism, racial prejudice and injustice, gun violence, and the Black Experience. While lyrics like, “police be trippin’ now” or “guns in my area” explicitly offer Glover’s stance on these societal issues and his purpose of artistry, “This is America’s” music video offers a far richer commentary on the Black Experience in America. The music video has also been analyzed by countless scholars on institutional levels (even here at Davidson, FMS220), to unveil its depictions of historical inequality. From the allusions to Jim Crow caricatures, the 2015 Charleston Church Shooting, and even South African dances, Gambino relies on artistic musical and visual choices to deliver powerful commentaries on racism and prejudice within America. 

Finally, Fela Kuti’s afrobeats track, “Water No Get Enemy,” also uses music and artistry to fight against systematic oppression and discrimination. Afrobeats is a genre originating from Nigeria in the 60s and 70s that features a blend of West African music with American jazz and funk. It emerged primarily through Fela Kuti, a crucial figure for the genre’s historical, social, and musical importance. Oftentimes, Kuti used his music to criticize and advocate against the Nigerian military dictatorship during the 70s, using Afrobeats as “a form of resistance” against pervasive norms, government structures, and colonial brainwashing. Through the genre’s blend of traditional Yoruba music (specific West African styles and rhythms), afrobeats relies on syncopated rhythms and complex percussive elements to act as method of self expression and storytelling. “Water No Get Enemy,” one of Fela Kuti’s most famous tracks, was released in 1975 in response to controversial actions regarding clean water sources. Alternatively translated to “water has no enemy,” the song is based on a Yoruba proverb that advises living in harmony with nature. Through the lyrics, the song claims that water, since it is an essential part of life, has no enemies; it is the basis of all life and provides sustenance to every corner of the earth. Kuti, however, is arguing that humans have become the enemy of water, polluting its sources, limiting availability, and destroying the harmonies of nature. By using jazz-inspired structures and methods of improvisation, Kuti (and the other musicians in the recording) freely advocate and criticize the systems that perpetuate the antagonization of water through music. 

With this historical context of each song, my Hack #4: Remix exhibits the ways in which music has been used to advocate for or against a purpose larger than itself. By using intentional choices like resampling, chopping, splicing, stem-splitting, and MIDI recording, I combined each track to tell a new story of how music has and will always be used as a powerful voice for society. 

Firstly, I used Logic Pro’s time warping ability to match the tempo of every audio track. Luckily, “What’s Going On,” “This is America,” and “Water No Get Enemy” are relatively around the same tempo, so time stretching and altering tempo wasn’t an issue. I then used the stem splitting ability in Logic for each track, which allowed me to isolate the vocals, drums, bass, and other musical elements of the song. Using this feature allowed me to blend the different parts of each song in a fluid, clean way. After each track was ready, I decided to juxtapose the smooth, orchestral instrumental of “What’s Going On” with the energetic vocals and trap inspired drums of “This is America.” This juxtaposition created an engaging product that thus recontextualized the meanings of each song. I also resampled vocal sections of “This is America” further emphasizing this idea of recontextualization and storytelling. I then combined a 4 bar looping instrumental section of “Water No Get Enemy” with vocal samples from both “What’s Going On” and “This is America.” “Water No Get Enemy” is in the key of D minor while “What’s Going On” is in the key of E major, so I had to transpose “What’s Going On” up by one semitone so they could fit together. Finally, I concluded the remix with my own recording of a neo-jazz, funk piano solo. I thought that adding my own language and voice in the form of a jazz inspired solo paid homage to the idea of music being a form of free expression for all. In conclusion, my Hack #4 combines these three very different, yet similar for their purpose in the context of societal contribution, songs to depict how music acts as a form of advocacy and voice. 

I broke rule #2

Credits:

Marvin Gaye, Al Cleveland, Renaldo Benson. “What’s Going On” (1971), Tamala.

Donald Glover, Ludwig Göransson, Jeffery Lamar Williams. “This Is America” (2018), RCA.

Fela Kuti. “Water No Get Enemy” (1975), Knitting Factory Records.