Have you seen the "Yes We Can" music video? [View All]

[sniffa]

Musicians have been turning up the volume in support of political causes for ages - performing at rallies and fund-raisers, penning topical tunes, and lending star power, for what it's worth, to their candidate of choice.

But this is the first election of the YouTube era, and will.i.am - frontman for the socially conscious rap group Black Eyed Peas, which performed at the Democratic National Convention in Boston four years ago - wanted to do more. Inspired by the speech Barack Obama delivered in Nashua the night of the state primary, will.i.am set Obama's text to simple guitar and a soulful melody, recruited 36 artists to appear in a music video that was conceived, shot, and edited over three days last week, and posted "Yes We Can" online over the weekend.

It's been spreading like wildfire across the Web. As of midday yesterday, "Yes We Can" had been viewed more than 2 million times on YouTube and, according to a project spokesman, 10 million times on the host website, YesWeCanSong.com.

snip

The split-screen video features clips of the candidate speaking alongside shots of R&B singer John Legend, actress Scarlett Johansson, rapper Common, jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, actor-singer Nick Cannon, rocker Ed Kowalczyk, and others echoing Obama's spoken words in song. Will.i.am set the song's tempo to synch up with the New Hampshire audience, which supplies the song's rhythm with chants of "We want change, we want change!"

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/07/video_woven_with_obama_speech_catches_fire_on_youtube/

I posted it in the Video Forum
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=91560&mesg_id=91560