Resident premieres a new song on colonization, “This is Not America”

San Juan, 17 Mar The award-winning Puerto Rican rapper and composer Residente released his first official single in more than a year and a half on Thursday, “This is Not America”, which in the company of the French-Cuban twins Ibeyi discusses the history of colonization and slavery. “This is Not America” shares the message that all cultures and countries of the American continent are one and urges “not to separate and create an evolution for unity,” according to the Sony Music company statement. With this theme and his video, Residente conveys his opinion and pain for what he considers to be the continental social divide between North and South America by the United States. The video, directed by French director Gregory Ohrel, symbolically mixes different cultures, portraying indigenous children sitting on disposable objects of global capitalism and placing pre-Columbian monuments in the middle of first-world panoramas. The twins Ibeyi accompany Residente in this new production: Naomi Díaz on percussion and Lisa-Kaindé in the choirs. “This Is Not America” is related to a three-year resident project with faculty from Yale University and New York University. The experts studied the singer's brain waves along with the brain patterns of worms, mice, monkeys and flies, among others, in order to create musical frequencies that would become rhythms. For this song, Residente used his own brain waves and those of worms to develop emphatic electronic waves mixed with his rap, Ibeyi's voice, and Puerto Rican percussion. The new song by René Pérez Joglar, given name of Residente, comes shortly after the artist gave much to talk about after publishing a tough “tiraera” against Colombian J Balvin, whom he called “coward” and “racist”.