Mosh (song)
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"Mosh" is a song and video clip by the popular rapper Eminem and Guerrilla News Network, released on October 26, 2004, just prior to the 2004 presidential election. The video is available for free on the internet, and sends a very strong message to its audience to vote. The song was an excerpt from his album, Encore, not yet released at the time the video was made available to the public. G-Unit rapper Lloyd Banks has a subplot in the video.
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[edit] Goals
According to the Internet Archive (one of the hosts for this video): "On the eve of one of the most spirited elections in recent times, its [sic] time to try and turn out the vote. With more than 55 million voters between the ages of 18 and 35, this demographic group accounts for 36% of the total eligible voters in the U.S. And as witnessed in 2000 it all comes down to who shows up to vote on election day."
"The goal of this production was to make a video that inspired young people to vote because they too often disregard it as a powerless exercise. To show them that political decisions do impact their daily lives and that voting is the most powerful act we all have to voice our opinion and effect change. And finally, to educate and reiterate the point that whether or not people want to accept it, there are forces in play that attempt to suppress the youth and minority vote."
The goal might not have been reached. While more young people showed up to vote in the 2004 election than in 2000, their percentage of the overall vote remained the same (17%) due to an increase in all voting ages. Eminem later told an Irish paper that he wished he had released the video earlier because he felt that perhaps it would have inspired more young people to vote.
[edit] Storyline
The song and video are heavily anti-Bush, and very critical of his presidency. The video is highly stylized, containing altered video, cartoon techniques, and is shot in a dark tone.
The opening scene features the sound of children reciting the American Pledge of Allegiance, as a jet plane flies over their school. Offscreen an impact is heard, as the children sit in their classroom. At the head of the class, Eminem is seen apparently reading from an upside-down book that says My Pet on the cover as he shouts "It feels so good to be back!"
As the driving beat of the music builds, an animated character dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, representing the artist Eminem, leads a large gathering of hooded people to the White House. The crowd appears highly discontent with George W. Bush's leadership. At first, the police attempt to block the crowd from entering, but they break through. Once inside we see that they are merely there to vote.
Near the end of the video, Eminem faces the 'camera' and raps the line "In these closing statements -- if they should argue -- let us beg to differ! As we set aside our differences, and assemble our own army, to disarm this Weapon of Mass Destruction that we call our President, for the present, and march to the future of our next generation, to speak, and be heard: Mister President, Mister Senator!"
The video closes with a small child's voice asking the question: "You guys hear us?" , then fades to black, and the message: VOTE TUESDAY NOVEMBER 2 appears on the screen.
[edit] Two Versions
Two versions of the video exist, the original delineated above and an allegedly "uncensored" version, where the crowd is not bursting in to register to vote but rather entering the United States Capitol. They then proceed to protest and communicate their needs to the Supreme Court of the United States and United States Congress.
[edit] Credits
Mosh was produced, directed and edited by Ian Inaba, of GNN TV. The Art Director was Anson Vogt, of Phong. Character Animation was done by Haik Hoisington of blackmustache.com. Motion graphics were by Steve Ogden of steveo.tv. Craig Patches did illustration and animation for the video. The Eminem character was animated by Kevin Elam, after effects were by Mark Nicola -- both of kevinelam.com. The Green screen producer and cameraman was John Quigly. Illustration design was by Thomas Brohdal, with illustration support by Nicholas Sanchez. Mosh was a Guerrilla News Network production.
The video was updated after the elections (possibly to allow MTV to keep this video on heavy rotation) with the mob storming the Capitol during Bush's State of the Union Address and Vice-President Cheney suffering a heart attack.
[edit] Free download
The demand for this video within hours of its release in October of 2004 was so great that it was served from multiple locations by http, as well as ftp servers and bittorrent. According to archive.org:
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- "...GNN.tv produced a get-out-the-vote Eminem video that they uploaded to the Archive. While we have a gigabit connection to the Internet, even that is being pounded by this movie. We are serving more around 2 videos each second at this point (that is about 500Mbits/sec between the US and the EU archives)." ... "...we are getting 10's of thousands of downloads just for that file...".
[edit] Miscellaneous
'Mosh' is sometimes used as the entrance music for UFC Fighter Tito Ortiz.
In the middle of the 'Mosh' video, there is a picture of Bush with a kinfe through the picture. although MTV has censored that image, BET had actually allowed it, despite banning his previous 'Just Lose It' video.
[edit] External links
- Eminem's Mosh
- Eminem's Mosh Website (requires registration)
- Read reviews or download Mosh
- Read reviews or stream Mosh, -- smaller filesize version from The Internet Archive
- Read reviews or download the updated version of Mosh
in the line strap hi with an AK-47 let him go... bush is seen in an animated picture with an M-16 or possibly an m-4 but not an AK-47.
[edit] References
- MOSH VIDEO RE-EDITED, ContactMusic.com, November 30, 2004
