Clean Bandit's New Music Video Involves a Donald Trump Storyline
When “Mama” by Clean Bandit featuring Ellie Goulding is flicked on at a pregame or somewhere beachy and you are barefoot gyrating with a margarita in hand—it’s fun.
The two-and-a-bit minute bop from the album “What is Love” encourages light dancing but doesn’t immediately arouse conversation. With the repeated phrase, “Oh, Mama, hola, hola, hola / Don’t know what this is,” Goulding is conveying a (somewhat confusing) message of self-confidence. She feels so good! And so soft? Woven between techno beats and some electric guitar there is drama: her whole entire world is flipped upside down because she likes herself now and doesn’t know what to do. Sad.
But, the music video was more of a surprise. The video follows an affluent young boy with a gorgeous head of thick, swishy, blonde hair into adulthood. It captures his struggles at home, in the classroom and internally. In the end, it is revealed that this little boy is Donald Trump. It'd be hard for the viewer to not lose sympathy at this moment.
It is not revealed if the video is factual, but it seeks to show the transgression of Trump’s life and provides a brief explanation of the potential inner struggle he could feel as president. I mean, he even throws up a McDonald’s hamburger in the video because of anxiety!
“We wrote this script about a boy whose power was taken away from him as a child and he grew up determined to take that power back,” said Grace Chatto, one of the band members, said in an email. "We directed it ourselves and we found it to be a really interesting experience.”
Regardless of one's opinions surrounding the president, these conversations are an integral aspect of pop-culture and it is refreshing and surprising to see political commentary in a music video. Also, the song itself makes the listener move, smile and forget about anything other than an upbeat tempo for a couple of minutes and sometimes, that’s just good enough.
