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Sunday, July 21, 2013

Chris Brown's Unity Campaign


In today’s music entertainment news industry, negative behavior by celebrities is often more in the spotlight rather than the positive news. Sure there is news out there promoting upcoming albums, tours, and other projects. However, when it comes to the gossip columns, they would much rather post a story about some drunken incident after leaving a club, that one of these music artists was a part of rather than promoting a story about them giving back to their communities.

Chris Brown with fans supporting Trayvon Martin
R&B superstar Chris Brown is constantly in the news, and it’s usually something damaging to his reputation. Whether the things in the gossip columns are true or just rumors, they tend to neglect to promote the positive things he does. On July 6 Chris Brown participated in the “WE US: Walk Everywhere in Unity’s Shoes” charity event held at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles, California. He donated over 1,000 Reebok shoes to the students there. Brown called upon the L.A. mayor’s office, L.A. County sheriff’s office, L.A. graffiti artists, youth development organizations, gang reduction organizations, and his fans to help with the logistics and to inspire change and comfort. “Thank you for allowing me to continue to inspire change in the world. Today was a great step forward,” tweeted Brown to his 12.8 million followers. This event was so successful that Chris Brown
repeated this past weekend on July 20, not only to promote unity, but also to show support for the murdered young teen, Trayvon Martin.

This event is just one part of the Unity Campaign that Brown is a part of. The point of the campaign is to promote an end to violence and unity within our communities. His commitment to this message can be seen further in the release of his second single from his upcoming album X. The video for the single “They Don’t Know,” featuring the late R&B singer, Aaliyah could have gone in many different directions, but Brown decided to shoot the video in Compton, CA featuring the local youth. The video was shot in black and white with just a few shots of red and blue (two rival gang colors). The video starts with the quote “Every two hours in America today a child dies of a gunshot wound.” The next screenshot is of the quote “Unity is what we are afraid of so fear is insanity, lets love each other.” The message intended for viewers is to see the community coming together to take a stand against violence. It’s not even relevant to the actual song, but it works.  

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