Kehlani has long been an outspoken advocate for Palestinian liberation and has been protesting against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Today, she used a music video drop to continue that work. The music video for her love song “Next 2 U” opens with words by Palestinian American poet Hala Alyan as well as words of resistance: “LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA.”
As the music video continues, it’s full of images of Palestinian liberation and resistance. Kehlani and her backup dancers don suits made out of keffiyehs, and the Palestinian flag appears throughout the music video. This is art that isn’t subtle or indirect in where it stands. This is so much more than wearing a pin on a red carpet. Kehlani proves artists can and should be doing more to work meaningful politics into their art.
The imagery throughout the music video is also extremely queer, Kehlani and her backup dancers all up on each other. This doesn’t feel out of place or disconnected from all the Palestinian imagery in the video by any means but rather directly connected. Queer liberation and Palestinian liberation are linked. I’ll say it over and over and over for those in the back who still need to hear it. Kehlani being vocal about Palestine places her in a lineage of queer artist-activists who have done the same.
Just watch the music video in full:
Here, Kehlani proves any kind of art can be made political if you want it to. The song itself isn’t an overt protest song or about Palestine, but by suffusing the song with images of Palestinian resistance, she gives the work a message, using her platform in an organic and non-performative way.
Kehlani reflected on the making of the music video on Instagram, opening the caption with a quote by Black author-activist Toni Cade Bambara: “The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible.” According to Kehlani, her creative partner and the creative producer of the music video Sally Sujin Oh prioritized hiring Palestinians on set. The caption also makes reference to James Baldwin’s views on the role of an artist, and if you haven’t read Baldwin’s The Creative Process, I urge you to do so now.
Oh also posted about the making of the music video, writing on Instagram: “music videos are often painstaking and sometimes you’re left in an existential crisis about why you care so much. not this one. @kehlani has always been vocal but this is the first time working in this space that I was able to work with an artist that wanted to amplify palestinian writers, artists, and movement leaders.”
The music video ends with a block of text noting an attempt to end the video with a scroll honoring the names of the thousands of children killed by Israel’s genocidal attacks (and bolstered by bombs provided by the U.S.). The list was so long that even at its fastest scroll, it lasted a full three minutes and was illegible. The video’s description includes a link where people can scroll through the names. It would have been an empty gesture to merely provide an illegible list of names scrolling. This route is much more meaningful.
It’s also, it should be said, just a really great music video. There’s a misconception that all political art skews corny…rooted in the fact that a lot of political art is corny, but that corny art usually thinks it’s saying more than it actually is instead of saying something with its full chest. This music video avoids being corny by being good art with good politics from top to bottom.
