Vic Mensa

Bodies everywhere in this personal and poignant commentary on our current world situation.

Andre Muir, director: This video was deeply personal and stemmed from a tragedy in my life and in a way was my way with dealing with grief. I originally pitched a few different ideas to Vic Mensa, that he wasn’t really into. The ideas weren’t really there and I guess Vic could tell. We have known each other for more than a decade now, so I guess he could tell there was a level of distraction there and he had challenged me to make something based on what’s on my mind. My mother had just passed due to COVID 19 and we decided we would make something dedicated to her. I’m really thankful to him for allowing me to take his song and really make it something so much more personal...

When coming up with the idea, I knew I wanted it to be a social commentary and a critique on what was going on around us, but I couldn’t exactly narrow what exactly we wanted to critique, who was to blame? Who were the bad guys, who’s our antagonist? Who’s at fault. We knew we didn’t want to blame the victims, blame their habits or blame their lifestyles? You can’t blame essential workers or the elderly? That’s when we kind of realized what was at the heart of this video. It was this idea: “COVID’s not the disease, it’s the symptom.” – Of course, COVID is a disease but it is doing exactly what a virus is designed to do. The people dying from COVID, the essential workers, the elderly, the people with bad health – they are dying because they are victims to the socio-economic system that failed them. Most of the victims of COVID are people with underlying health issues, health issues that couldn’t be addressed because they didn’t have access to healthcare. Or their essential workers that couldn’t stay home and safe during the pandemic. These are all victims of bad infrastructure. They're just victims of being forgotten, being insignificant. COVID in a way was just the straw that cracked the camel’s back." [via press release]