Diamonds – followthethings.com

“Diamonds Are From Sierra Leone“
A music video starring Kanye West & Jay-Z, directed by Hype Williams, music by Kanye West, Jon Brion & Devo Springstein, for Roc-A-Fella Records.
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Kanye West is writing and recording a new song commemorating the rebirth of his label Roc-A-Fella Records, including conflicts within the organisation and its hand-signal which is the shape of a diamond. Q-Tip, a former member of A Tribe Called Quest, then alerts him to the ‘blood diamond’ scandal in Sierra Leone. So West changes the title of the track to ‘Diamonds are from Sierra Leone’. And makes a powerful black and white music video about the supply chain linking the country’s child diamond miners to wealthy white diamond consumers shopping in high end jewellery stores in the USA. A small, black, child’s hand appears from beneath the counter to hand these consumers the precious blood diamond they crave. The video ends with a converted luxury car ramming the store and a screen with a plea: ‘please buy conflict free diamonds’. The video wants to raise awareness of the issue. But audiences point out how a diamond-encrusted mask that West wears on stage, and the bling culture he brags about, makes this plea a bit hypocritical. His core fans are also not impressed by the song’s sample of Shirley Bassey’s ‘Diamonds Are Forever ‘ (plus some harpsichord sampling) on the album where this track appears. So he returns to recording more traditional Crack Music that his fans want to hear. Nevertheless, the message of ‘Diamonds Are From Sierra Leone’ gets through. Audience members are questioning the origins of their diamonds. So is this a successful example of trade justice activism despite – kind of – not being trade justice activism?

Page reference: Hector Neil-Mee, Hannah Willard, James Kemp, Harvey Dunshire, Maddy Morgan & Luke Jarvis (2024) Diamonds Are From Sierra Leone (taster). followthethings.com/diamonds-are-from-sierra-leone.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes.