“While racial injustice keeps killing, society keeps looking away,” reads the opening text in Usher, Nas and singer/songwriter Bibi Bourelly’s new video for “Chains.”
The artists address racial injustice and police brutality in the song’s visuals, something of an interactive experience with a pressing, overlying message: “Don’t Look Away.” Portraits of black lives lost to police brutality stream across the screen, as do their names, ages, and stories. The piercing images of the men and women, boys and girls, From Travyon Martin to Sean Bell, serve to present what Nas sums up in one succinct bar: “We’ve got a problem that needs to be solved.”
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No words could do the video justice, and the same can be said for the tragedies told in its story. Yet, “Chains” holds a powerful resonance that properly honors the late and pleads for awareness, attention and involvement from all — not just the families, not just people of color. “Facing the facts is the first step toward change,” the concluding text says. And on that note, Usher — along with Nas and Bourelly — leave the public with the fact that looking away is not an option.
Watch the video below.