Young Oakland artists L.L.D.B., Pamela Arriera, and Taiwo Murray collaborated with AshEL SeaSunZ (of the green hip-hop group Earth Amplified) to write the track, using a beat created for the project by FX at Youth Uprising. Oakland video students at KDOL-TV  helped produce the video, which was shot at People’s Grocery in West Oakland.

Four teens wake up from another evening’s sugar bender to find themselves transformed into fast food icons, sugar and burger addicts under the thumb of their nefarious gang leader, Ronald McDonald. Ronald forces them out to the street to sling sugar and chips to the neighborhood kids, sucking them dry of their money and their health. The kids are trapped– addicted to the fake “I’m Loving It” lifestyle. But when they finally have had enough of Ronald’s controlling ways, the kids leave him behind, and find themselves learning a whole new way of life in the community garden. “Are You Loving It?” is about the real love that’s found by going back to the land and leaving fake food behind.

New press on the video:

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From our friends in Richmond at the RYSE Center:

Young artists from Richmond, CA have something to say and the RYSE Youth Center provides support in elevating youth voices in meaningful ways. Street Literature is the result of young folks coming together to share the impact that the deaths of individuals such as Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, and Israel Hernandez have had on them. Tired of being ignored, silenced, judged, and criminalized, these youth decided to voice their thoughts on how they are viewed and treated in our larger society. Using hip-hop music as a tool for self expression, these young artists have demonstrated the courage to speak their minds, to make the world see them for who they really are, and to emerge as young leaders in the effort to transform both their own community and communities like Richmond, CA around the world.

Episode 03 features the award-winning animated short, “Wake Up Call,” produced by MetWest interns at KDOL, as well as “Solarize”, a homegrown music video (produced in collaboration with our friends at United Roots) that tackles the topic of climate justice and indigenous rights. We’ve also got music videos from Muse Video’s own L.L.D.B. and La’Marley and Lani from Youth Uprising. We also talk with young climate activist Shadia Fayne Wood of Project Survival Media about what young people can do to address climate change.

Muse Video is proud to present a new music video project that brought together some talented youth artists from United Roots Oakland who created a track about global warming. Desirae Harp and Fly 50 joined music mentor SeasunZ, of Earth Amplified, to write and perform the song. Beat production and sound engineering by Luis Montoya and Mansa Evans.

Our MetWest High School student interns have been hard at work designing scenes and character sketches for the piece and bringing them to life through animation.

We hope that this project will be eye-opening for other young people and inspire them to act on this critical issue. Check out our video below:

In our video, we give ways to decrease your carbon footprint, but it is also important to join the social movement and learn about other things that you can do to help save the planet!

There are a lot of ways to get involved and there are plenty of organizations that are doing great things here in the Bay Area. Here are some groups that inspire us:

Alliance for Climate Education

From the beginning of this project, ACE and their amazing multimedia presentation have been a huge inspiration for us. We had ACE presenter Ashel Eldridge come to MetWest High School to educate us and our classmates about climate change. Their work inspired us to act and make our own video on the issue. Go to their website and tell your teachers and principals that you want to bring ACE to your school! The first step to creating change is to educate the people around us on the issue.

http://www.acespace.org/teachers/book

+350.org

350 plays a key role in organizing what’s quickly becoming the biggest social movement in a generation, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people from all around the world. One of the biggest campaigns going on right now is the fight to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline from being completed, which would be a huge blow for reducing our climate emissions and our reliance on fossil fuels. Go to their website NOW to sign their pledge and support the campaign against Keystone XL.

http://act.350.org/letter/a_million_strong_against_keystone/

Global Footprint Network

Another local organization here in the Bay Area, GFN has a great online game where you can find out your own carbon footprint. Check it out!

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/

Facts to Think About

If we want to change the world, first we have to know where we’re at and just how dire the situation is. Here are some facts to keep in mind:

- The Earth should be nearing the bottom of a several-thousand year cool-off. Instead, temperatures are rising rapidly, at unprecedented rates.

- Scientists have shown that this global warming is directly linked to human activity. In the past century, humans have started to burn massive amounts of fossil fuels like oil and natural gas, releasing carbon doxide and greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

-The climate change that results from all those greenhouse gases don’t just make things hotter– it causes the entire weather system to go haywire, making droughts and floods worse, storms like Superstorm Sandy to get more intense, and causes a huge loss of life for humans, animals and entire ecosystems.

-Montana’s Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later. All this melting ice is happening all over the world, and will cause sea levels across the entire world to rise, wiping out coastal cities and ecosystems.

- The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850.

-The Arctic is feeling the effects the most. Sea level increases up to 59 cm. According to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report between 2000 and 2004, average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average.

-Highly sensitive coral reefs around the world have been suffering from climate change too, bleaching and dying off in response to the stress from water temperature changes. These situations will increase drastically in the next 50 years as the sea temperatures rise.

So what do we do?

Share this video and website with your friends, educate the people around you and join the already huge movement to reverse our path and end our reliance on fossil fuels!

Our New Pulse artist profile series continues with the East Bay’s own Necie Marie, a powerful young poet and rapper representing United Roots in Oakland! Produced by Muse Video and All Is One Productions.

Muse Video and All is One Productions brings you the third installment of our artist profile series, New Pulse– this time featuring Oakland’s own rapper and beat-maker extraordinaire from the United Roots crew, RythM!

Check out the latest from Muse Video’s new series, New Pulse– brought to us by ALL IS ONE productions. This week’s episode features 18-year-old Bay Area rapper Rob D. He’s been in the music and poetry scene all his life, along with a rap group called YFWK (your favorite weekend kids.) His music is a clear reflection of who he is and what he lives by. Rob D is one of the rare artists that only focuses on giving his audience the truth and reality of his life– check him out and be blown away!

Check back every Friday for a new feature, and send us an email at [email protected] if you know an artist that should be featured on an upcoming episode!