In honor of Earth Day, comedy-rapper David Burd, better known as Lil Dicky, released a song and animated music video featuring over 30 of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities. The purpose of the video is to call attention to the poor way the Earth is being treated and the impact it is causing.
Burd is known for his irreverent comedy and had initially set out to make a video portraying a number of celebrities as animals. It wasn’t until he began researching the California wildfires and other issues pertaining to climate change that he decided to try to help save the planet.
“I didn’t know that we literally have 12 years to completely change how we do so many things on Earth, from a fundamental standpoint, or the damage will be irreversible and in our lifetimes we’re going to experience such drastic impact,” Burd said in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine. “Upon realizing that, it went from a silly song about animals to, ‘Oh my God, this is the most important thing I’ll ever do.'”
Celebrities including Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, Kevin Hart and Leonardo Dicaprio collaborated with Burd – for free – to create the video. The stars took to their social media platforms and used #WeLoveTheEarth to promote the song and video, which was released on April 19.
The video managed to reach over 3.5 million views in a matter of hours.
A portion of the proceeds from the song, video and any related merchandise are being donated to the Leonardo Dicaprio foundation as well as nonprofits working to find solutions to climate change, including the Quick Response Fund for Nature, the Shark Conservation Fund and the Carbon Cycle Institute.
Many people are relating this effort to the 1985 video USA for Africa: We Are the World, which featured many of America’s top artists including Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner and Bruce Springsteen. Both videos are meant to bring awareness and aid to current issues impacting the Earth and the people living on it.
“These days it’s like we don’t know how to act. All these shootings, pollution, we under attack on ourselves. Like, let’s just all chill, respect what we built,” Burd said in his song.
His hope by making this song a musical anthem is to impact humanity by grabbing the attention of the younger generation to spark their interest in taking care of the Earth they live on and support climate change solution organizations.
