ANOHNI, an artist, activist and the singer of Antony and the Johnsons, has released a spectacular new single titled “Drone Bomb Me,” accompanied by a video of Naomi Campbell crying the best tears you might ever see.
ANOHNI’s music is loudly, unapologetically political in a way that rarely translates this well; her previous single “4 Degrees,” timed to the Paris Climate Conference, stood in stark and gorgeous contrast to Paul McCartney and Colbie Caillat’s “Love Song to the Earth” monstrosity. This year, ANOHNI was the second openly transgender person to have been nominated for an Academy Award (for her track “Manta Ray,” from the documentary Racing Extinction); she was not invited to perform, and wrote an essay for Pitchfork about her decision not to attend.
According to a press release, “‘Drone Bomb Me’ is a love song written from the perspective of a young girl in Afghanistan whose family has been executed by unmanned U.S. drones. She dreams of being annihilated.” The video, directed by Nabil (who has previously collaborated with FKA twigs, Frank Ocean and Kanye West) and art directed/styled by Riccardo Tisci, also features a really fucking incredible lip sync by Naomi Campbell, whose tearful close-ups are interspersed with plenty of supermodel-as-Christ imagery and the chaotic, anguished movements of a group of male dancers.
ANOHNI’s album HOPELESSNESS, which includes tracks titled “Execution,” “Obama,” and “Violent Men,” is out May 6 via Secretly Canadian/Rough Trade.
Watch the full video here.
Contact the author at ellie@jezebel.com.
Gif footage via Apple Music.
DISCUSSION
yeah, political messages about the brutality of war and dance beats danced to by supermodels don’t go together.
Have political song-makers always been completely insufferable, or is this a more recent thing?