In the song 'One Tribe' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IisSJsSaA0o) by the Black Eyed Peas, the main message is that the world needs to come together and be united. Another part of this song is acceptance vs. intolerance. ‘If I had an enemy then my enemy’s gonna try an’ come and kill me ‘cuz I’m his enemy’. That line is so sad, that just because we put the label of ‘enemy’ on someone that we may not agree with, we have to kill them! We can’t tolerate things not going our way, so we use violence to ensure that they do. In this song, it makes it sound so easy to just treat everyone as equal and never cause any harm. The song says, and I quote, “Let’s cast amnesia, forget about all that evil.” Not to be a downer, but I don’t think any drug could erase the existence of hatred and using violence as a way to solve our problems. In a way, even if we ‘forget’ (using amnesia) evil, evil in sense is in our nature. From as long as the earth has existed, people or even animals have fought to get what they want, possibly resorting to violence to get there. Is this song too hopeful, or is it just what the world needs to finally get the message that we should at least make a small effort to become ‘one’?
I am really not sure. Like the song Imagine, the ideas for a world of peace now seem so far off, but like John Lennon said ‘I’m not the only one’ (who thinks peace can be made). In a sense, if we don’t think or believe peace can come, it won’t, but even if we get influenced in the slightest sense by a song maybe we can make small steps. Peace obviously is a huge thing, so even though this song is suggesting we change immediately and forget everything, the reality is that it is showing us a path of small steps toward one day hopefully achieving that goal.
Another part of the song that stood out to me is when it says “Forget about all that evil, that evil that they feed ya.” Do we really get fed evil? I suppose in a sense the media feeds us evil -- gossip, rumors, influences etc. It sort of ‘feeds’ us in the sense that sometimes people are satisfied that other people are below them or struggling. Could we ever stop that ‘evil’ from being broadcasted? Is it good to be satisfied off of someone else’s hardships? Don’t know if I could answer that...
Basically, One Tribe is about how wrong our world is, and how it should be easy to move on from that evil, but since we live in this messed up world where we get fed evil, we can’t. Honestly, I think it’s easier to sing about curing evil then to do it, but maybe this song can nudge us a bit in the right direction.
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