Mary J. Blige serenades Hillary Clinton in clip released of upcoming interview
What happens when one of the most powerful women in music sits down with one of the most powerful women in the world? Singing, apparently.
Apple Music released two clips Monday night of an interview featuring Mary J. Blige questioning Hillary Clinton that will be released on Blige’s Beats 1 radio show “The 411” on Friday.
The first clip featured the multi-platinum artist serenading the Democratic presidential nominee with “American Skin (41 Shots)” — Bruce Springsteen’s song inspired by the 1999 police shooting death of Amadou Diallo — before grasping Clinton’s hand and asking, “I just want to know, where do we go from here?”
The second clip showed Blige asking Clinton how she would deal with Congress before telling the former secretary of State that she was going to confide something in her that she’d never shared with anyone.
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As interesting as the concept of Blige interviewing Clinton may be, the clips Apple released read as slightly off.
Clinton doesn’t utter a single word in either clip, an editing choice that plays as particularly uncomfortable during Blige’s rendition of “American Skin (41 Shots).”
In principle, Blige’s covering Springsteen for Clinton should be a huge coup for Apple Music, given the cultural climate and conversation surrounding institutional racism and police violence. But to watch Blige perform while seated next to a presidential candidate she’s ostensibly interviewing distracts from the message at hand, as it becomes impossible to think about anything other than how odd the situation is.
Curious viewers will have to wait until Friday to see if the interview is as awkward as the clips released by Apple Music.
Twitter: @midwestspitfire
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