White Guy Announces Well-Intentioned Bid for New Orleans Mayor With Wack Rap Video

A New Orleans-based visual artist just dropped the [fire emoji] rap video of the year on Wednesday to announce he’s running for mayor on a platform of curbing violence in the city.

In the nearly three-minute long video, Charles O. Anderson wears an array of colorful suit jackets and spits the lyrics: “This is not a joke / I want nothing more / than to kill our killings / It’s what I breathe for.”

“Don’t want to see no one dead,” Anderson raps later on the track, dubbed “The Announcement.” “I know because even I had a gun to my head,” he rhymes, pantomiming a gun pointed at his temple. Much of the video shows him standing in front of a wall of pictures, mostly of black people.

Anderson, it needs to be said, is a corny-ass rapper. But he knows it.

“I released this video not because I think I can rap or I want to be a rap artist, but because I wanted to ensure that my mayoral bid and more importantly the cause gets the attention of the whole city,” Anderson said in a statement posted with the video. “I will do anything to make sure that we stop the shootings and killings.”

Anderson, who’s running as a Democrat, wants to drastically cut the city’s homicide rate by 50% through an expansive, four-year, $30 million public safety plan he calls, “Everywhere, Every ward, CeaseFire.” He’s currently a part of CeaseFire New Orleans, an initiative to stop violence by framing it as a public health issue which he wants expanded to the rest of the city.

He’s also aware about the perils of putting out a video with a white guy rapping.

“I think any time you have a white guy rapping, there’s some opticals to confront,” Anderson told Fusion.

But even so, a friend convinced him a rap video would be the best way to get the word out about CeaseFire. And since it began in 2012, there are some very promising statistics to back the program up, like a 40% reduction in shootings and killings in Central City, one of New Orleans’ most violence-hit neighborhoods.

“I’ve tried to do anything to make sure that CeaseFire thrives and is expanded,” he said.

Anderson said that the feedback has so far been positive, adding that the video is a way of bringing levity to a topic that people find hard to talk about.

“I’ve been part of this for so long, talked with so many mothers, gone to so many funerals,” he told me. “My seriousness is there, and just because I like to have fun and like to entertain, doesn’t take away, for me, the spotlight from the seriousness of this.”

Whether his video reflects that is another question. Watch for yourself and see what you think. And for your reading pleasure, here are Anderson’s full lyrics:

VERSE 1

This is not a joke

I want nothing more

Than to kill our killings

It’s what I breathe for

Said this, is not a joke

I want nothing more

Than to kill our killings

It’s what I breathe for

CHORUS

Say I’m running for mayor

I’m running, running, running

Say I’m running for mayor

I’m running, running, running

Say I’m running for mayor

I’m running, running, running

Say I’m running for mayor

I’m running, running, running

Say I’m running for mayor

I’m running, running, running

VERSE 2

So you can laugh at me, and you can laugh at my raps

But people killing each other, ain’t nothing funny bout that

See I live for peace, what I breathe, what I eat

Why I’m running so hard to get to dreams in the streets

People, people, people, please

Let’s all come together and cure this disease

CeaseFire’s got that fire plan to get us zero kills

But it won’t come cheap, probably cost 30 mil

It’s so, so worth it, don’t wanna see no one dead

I know it’s real cause even I had a gun to my head

He said get out of this place, made me hang to my faith

I’m rumbling now I’m running for the mayor’s race

It goes 4 years, no more tears, that’s the plan I know you hear

so stop the violence, 30 mil, CeaseFire, we got the bill

so stop the violence, 30 mil, CeaseFire, we got the bill

[CHORUS]

What a ride.

A special thanks to my esteemed colleagues Aleksander Chan for his gif-making and Jack Mirkinson for his transcription help.