Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am was so inspired by a speech given by White House hopeful Barack Obama that he turned it into a music video filled with celebrities singing the Democrat's words.
Will.i.am says on his website that he made the song, entitled "Yes We Can," after hearing the silver-tongued candidate's speech at the primary in New Hampshire, where he lost to Hillary Clinton, in which he repeatedly intoned those three words.
The video opens with a black-and-white shot of Will before cutting to a shot of actress Scarlett Johansson, as an acoustic guitar is strummed in the background.
In the fourth bar, Will sings and Obama speaks the words of the speech the Democratic candidate gave in New Hampshire, which lends itself with ease to a musical cadence:
"It was a creed, written in the founding documents, that declared the destiny of the nation: yes, we can."
As the song and speech continue, images of Obama are juxtaposed or swap the screen with shots of celebrities including basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, jazz great Herbie Hancock, model-turned-actress Amber Valletta and Johansson.
The video ends with the word "hope" morphing into "vote."
"I was never really big on politics ... and actually I'm still not big on politics," Will.i.am wrote on his blog.
"But four years ago, me and the Black Eyed Peas supported (Democratic presidential candidate John) Kerry. ... We performed and performed and performed, doing all we could do to get the youth involved," he said.
"I came up with the idea to turn Obama's speech into a song because that speech affected and touched my inner core like nothing in a very long time," he says.
The video and song were made in "a matter of two days," and can be played or downloaded for free on the Internet.
According to press reports, the Obama campaign has not contacted Will about the song -- not even to request using it as the theme song for the Illinois senator's bid for the Democratic nomination.
