Music Video Endorses Obama

As Super Tuesday approaches the back and forth candidate endorsement game pulls high profile supporters out of the woodwork -- Schwarzenegger and Giuliani throw their muscle behind McCain, The New York Times is betting on Clinton, Ted and Caroline Kennedy see JFK in BHO. But the most creative stump speech yet may have come from musician Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, who, in an effort to appeal widely to young voters, has drawn together a dozen or more famous faces for a feel-good pop music video called 'Yes We Can,' inspired by their support for presidential hopeful Barack Obama. The Obama camp says it is an independent effort by supporters, yet features it prominently on the campaign website.

The new song, released Saturday February 2nd, splices together passage snippets from Obama's New Hampshire concession speech. At the January 8th rally he purportedly delivered the same speech that he'd prepared in the event of a primary victory with a few adjustments. His victory was in fact anticipated by poll data leading into the election, but Clinton won by three percentage points. Obama concluded the speech by explaining his camp's expectation to get over that night's loss and their underdog status altogether to eventually win the nomination. The last few minutes of the 13 minute speech drew on a theme once popularized by 1970s farm worker's rights advocate Ceasar Chavez, Si Se Puede or Yes We Can. From these moments in Obama's speech come the samples that play like a spoken word poetry performance once they're laid over Will.i.am's arrangement of acoustic guitar and piano along with samples of the New Hampshire crowd's clapping and chanting of 'Yes We Can' and 'We Want Change.'

The featured music and movie stars include Scarlett Johansson, Common, John Legend, Jesse Dylan, Hill Harper, Herbie Hancock, Kate Walsh, Nick Cannon, Tatyana Ali, Harold Perrineau Jr., Tracee Ellis Ross, Kelly Hu, Adam Rodriquez, Amber Valetta, Eric Balfour, Aisha Tyler, Nicole Scherzinger and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. They each sing the words of Obama's now famous speech accompanied by Obama's voice, sampled and edited to fit the structure of a pop song with verses, chorus, bridge and crescendo.

The celebrity ensemble is reminiscent of other popular cause-driven collaborations like 1985's 'We Are The World' effort by Quincy Jones, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson and other stars of the '80s that raised money to help relieve hunger in Ethiopia. Today, as political and social movements spread virally over the internet, an effort such as this gets immediate attention by millions. The 'Yes We Can' video was available immediately on YouTube and viewed by more than 190,000 site members after 24 hours.