Amid the personal-meets-political turmoil of her career, it makes sense that Kesha’s 2018 has been filled with political rallying cries of all sorts, including “Here Comes the Change,” her contribution to the upcoming biopic On the Basis of Sex.
The “Praying” singer debuted another rousing anthem on Friday (Oct. 12), “Safe,” a collaboration with her brother, Sage Sebert, Alabama rapper Chika, and the non-profit March for Our Lives. “I wrote the song ‘Safe’ with my younger brother @SageSebert after the tragic mass shooting in Parkland,Florida,” she tweeted about the February massacre at a Florida high school that took the lives of 17 students and led to the nationwide March For Our Lives movement.
“Safe”– which doubles as a campaign to elect politicians who support sensible gun legislation in the upcoming midterm election — comes packaged with a heartbreaking, Rube Goldberg-style sequence that calls out the ceaseless political inaction that follows a mass shooting. It critiques the gun lobby, “thoughts and prayers” sentiments, and “guns don’t kill people”-style rhetoric.
“I don’t want to be brave/ I just want to be safe,” sings Sage in the chorus. The visual repeats twice with the message “the most dangerous cycle,” further driving its point home. As the sequence cycles, it honors the lives that have been lost due to gun violence in schools and reiterates the hashtag slogan “#VoteforOurLives.”
Kesha also penned a stirring op-ed for Teen Vogue to accompany “Safe’s” premiere, where she writes about the motivations behind making the song and partnering with March for Our Lives. “We are forced to lie to children because the truth is too nonsensical: the truth is that politicians seem to be too scared for their own jobs and donation sources to try to do anything significant to prevent these awful shootings from happening again,” she writes.
Watch the stunning visual below: