upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024
Maori will produce, direct and edit four music videos featuring four independent musical groups of socially progressive artists based in Philadelphia and Washington DC— Fertile Ground, Kamilah Clarke, Luminous Flux, and W. Ellington Felton. Each of these musicians strives to create social change through their music, but this message is often lost on those who depend on the radio for information. Maori will create these videos to get people’s attention and set a complimentary visual tone for the music, while pushing people to think critically about other ways hip hop can be without always resorting to the “booty-shakin’, car bouncin’, grills flashin’ charade.” These videos will be shared in movie theatres, live shows, schools, and other public spaces in efforts to expose people to new music, with the hope that the strong aesthetic statements these artists make will shift people’s notions of what is considered alluring and sexually or materially desirable.