Prince Ea is a rapper of import who raps about a wide range of subjects, including poverty, cannabis legislation, inner city conditions such as impoverished single-parent households, urban violence, and environmentalism. He is an avid supporter of the green movement, which is mainly focused on reducing and/or eliminating carbon emissions into the earth’s atmosphere – a man-made scenario that is causing the hotly-debated trend of climate change. As an environmentalist who is concerned about earth’s environment, the video I chose resonates well with some of the fears and concerns I have about the future of all life on our planet.
The video, “Dear Future Generations: Sorry”, is a spoken word performance by Prince Ea (Prince Ea). The video stresses his lyrical and poetic talent. He begins by apologizing to future generations for the environmental destruction that “progress” has caused, a price that will cost humanity in the long run. He addresses people such as Sarah Palin, condemning her for liking the “smell of fossil fuels”. This video utilizes a maudlin soundtrack of light piano, as Prince Ea raps in his signature poetic style. In the video, he is standing in the desert, a wasteland which used to be the Amazon rain forest. The setting is sparse, suggesting that climate change caused by human energy consumption, waste, and capitalism will wreak havoc on the planet, for which future generations will pay dearly.
I believe that the subject matter of this video is important, and shows that Prince Ea is a socially-conscious human being. Thus, its content and style struck me as impressive. I believe that this video was effective for relaying the message about global climate change. However, I also believe that short music videos cannot present enough in-depth information to effectively persuade a viewer to think or behave in a certain way. On the other hand, a short, simple message can be put to music, and made into a video rather easily. However, there is a fine line between music and propaganda.
Works Cited
Prince Ea. “Dear Future Generations: Sorry.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 20 Apr. 2015. Web. 04 May. 2016.
