Almost 50 Years After Its Release, Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” Has A New, Heartbreaking Music Video

In anticipation of an upcoming reissue of Marvin Gaye's sole live performance of the landmark album What's Going On, Motown has released a new, heartbreaking music video for its title track. Directed by Savanah Leaf, the video uses clips of Marvin performing live with a narrative that involves the horrors of gun violence, racial profiling, the Flint water crisis, and our broken for-profit healthcare system in a four minute package that brought tears to my eyes.

A Tale of Two Sam Cookes

Sam Cooke was essential to desegregating audiences in the United States, but there were still two sides to the man as a performer. The King of Soul had huge crossover success, with songs like “You Send Me” hitting the top of both the Pop and R&B charts, but the Sam Cooke that white audiences saw was different from the Sam Cooke that black audiences did.