Residente releases a new song about colonization, “This is Not America”

The award-winning Puerto Rican rapper and songwriter Residente released his first official single in more than a year and a half this Thursday, «This is Not America»which in the company of the Franco-Cuban Ibeyi twins addresses the history of colonization and slavery.

“This is Not America” ​​shares the message that all cultures and countries of the American continent are one urges “not to separate and create an evolution for unity”according to the statement from the Sony Music company.

With this song and its video, Residente transmits his opinion and pain for what he considers to be the social continental division between North and South America by the United States.

The video, directed by the French director Gregory Ohrelsymbolically mixes different cultures, portraying indigenous children sitting on disposable objects of global capitalism and placing pre-Columbian monuments in the middle of first world panoramas.

The twins accompany Residente in this new production Ibeyi: Naomi Díaz on percussion and Lisa-Kaindé on backing vocals.

“This Is Not America” is related to a three-year-old project by Residente with professors from Yale University and New York University.

Experts studied the singer’s brain waves along with the brain patterns of worms, mice, monkeys and flies, among others, in order to create musical frequencies that would become rhythms.

For this song, Residente used his own brain waves and those of worms to develop emphatic waves of electronica mixed with his rap, Ibeyi’s voice and Puerto Rican percussion.

The new song by René Pérez Joglar, Residente’s first name, comes shortly after the artist caused a lot of talk after publishing a harsh “strip” against the Colombian J Balvin, whom he called a “coward” and “racist.”