VIDEO: Erykah Badu's Naked Video At JFK Assassination Spot Causes Internet Waves
March 30 2010, Published 7:10 a.m. ET
Erykah Badu sure knows how to make a statement. Her new video for the song Window Seat shows her slowly stripping down as she walks through her hometown of Dallas, including by the Dealey Plaza where John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.
The controversial video has quickly made the internet rounds. Badu told the Dallas Morning News that the video was a "protest" about personal liberation and that the video's historic location was meant to enhance her message.
"I tied it in a way that compared the assassination to the character assassination one would go through after showing his or her self completely," she told the paper. "That's exactly the action I wanted to display." At the end of the video, a shot rings out and a naked Badu falls to the ground with blue liquid streaming from her body and spelling out "groupthink."
Shortly afterwards, Badu's voice is heard reciting the following statement: "They play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs, ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another. They feel most comfortable in groups; less guilt to swallow. They are us; this is what we have become, afraid to respect the individual. A single person within our circumstance can move one to change, to love herself, to evolve."
The music video's director Chike told MTV that they had the bail money at the ready in case the police pulled the plug on the operation. The maximum fine would have been $4,000 and up to one year in jail. "I think she really wanted to get arrested and even make a bigger message," Chike's partner Coodie said.
Badu expressed her surprise over the anger her self-expression brought out in onlookers. "Heard people yelling diff things @ me but i held my head up and kept moving. there were children there. i prayed they wouldnt b traumatized...they were yelling, THIS IS A PUBLIC PLACE : YOU OUGHTA BE ASHAMED: PUT YOUR CLOTHES ON: D--N GIRL! Etc," she wrote on her Twitter page.
"Funny, i thought i was outta shape thus encouraging others toward self love.. but they think im showin off. lol. the irony."
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