Raury Calls Out For A Better World In "PSA (Seven Suns)"
The power with which Raury projects his music continues to amaze. The Atlanta singer, songwriter, and MC has just released a brand new video for "PSA (Seven Suns)," the anthemic larger-than-life rock closer to his Indigo Child mixtape. One of the most dramatic and well-produced video clips we've encountered all year, the new release is a full-on assault on our world's cellphone addiction and shows Raury and his crew of punk freedom fighters cornering people, nabbing their digital devices and then running off to destroy them (the phones, that is).
It might sound so simple, and yet "PSA (Seven Suns)" is a triumph of mood and theme. Gorgeous shots of Raury's anti-phone clan riding an SUV in the desert and later setting phones ablaze show just how committed the young artist is to creating a visual experience that in every way matches the intensity of the music. Borrowing tropes from films like The Warriors and Mad Max, the clip shows modern society and a post-industrial wasteland as not all that far apart, and demands that viewers stop and question, if only for a moment, the dependent/abusive relationship they have with technology, social media and the life lived online.
Whether or not a better world can come about through the deployment of outright theft and destruction of property, Raury and his LoveRenaissance succeed in problematizing our modern attachment to glowing screens, and they do it through a beautiful bit of online storytelling that's easy to stream through a mobile device. Irony? Perhaps, but when the crescendoing guitar solos of "PSA" hit their peak, the urge to unplug and hit the dusty highway is almost too powerful to resist. Watch Raury's new clip below, and do yourself a favor and revisit his last video for "God's Whisper."
