In a major ICYMI moment, Billy Porter premiered the lyric video for “For What It’s Worth” on Saturday (4/25) at Joe Biden’s “Soul of a Nation” virtual event.
Mr. Biden, former Vice President and the presumptive Democratic nominee, held the virtual event to mark the one-year anniversary of his entrance into the 2020 race. #SOULSaturday encourages supporters to take action to help support their local communities. In 2020, that includes a special emphasis on thanking front line essential workers and first responders.
Of his rendition of the ubiquitous classic, Porter said: “I decided to record ‘For What It’s Worth’ because I wanted to have my art and my music matter, make a difference. I come from the generation where the music reflected what was going on in the world. I wanted to have a hand in bringing that back and speaking truth directly to power.”
The song comes with Porter’s continual messaging about the importance of registering now and voting in November, which tied in perfectly with the Biden event.
“Our voices and our votes matter now more than ever,” said Porter. “I’m not going to tell you who to vote for, I just want you to vote. I, personally, will be casting my vote for Joe Biden.”
For the song’s video, Porter turned to emerging artist Kameron Neal to create a compelling and important piece of visual art.
“This lyric video is EVERYTHING!,” said Porter. “Kameron Neal did an amazing job of capturing the right tone with the right imagery, usage of color, the interesting typography, and the reference to the classic Selma to Montgomery March photo. When I saw the final version, I cried.”
“When I heard Billy’s urgent take on the classic, I knew I wanted to drop him into a kinetic quilt of found images, his body revolving like the earth as he takes in what’s happening around him—a jittery, tactile, stop motion collage reimagining the iconic VOTE photo from the Selma March,” said Neal. I’m still completely floored by that image. It still holds so much weight. What are the images we, today, can collectively rally behind?”
Watch the “For What It’s Worth” lyric video
LINK: https://youtu.be/Ba3b-wBut8s
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