Another day, another Adele cover, amirite?
Except this one comes just in time for the fictional-dystopia-in-real-life that is San Francisco during the Super Bowl: backroom deals, taxpayer-funded $4.8 million corporate playgrounds, a police-state atmosphere and dozens of homeless people swept aside for tourists. Go football!
"Hello Ed Lee," a new video out today by singer-performance artist Candace Roberts, is an open letter to the mayor and an indictment of all of the above -- with a touchdown pass of San Francisco's untenable housing crisis thrown in for good measure. Set to the somber piano of Adele's "Hello," Roberts' doesn't mince words:
Hello from the other side
The Google bus don't give no rides
And I don't work for Twitter or Airbnb
So I'm struggling to stay here, I'm down on my knees
The video includes the homeless encampment along Division Street, anti-eviction rallies in the Mission, the Dropbox soccer bro, coverage of the $4.8 million Super Bowl City, a Bayview Causa Justa::Just Cause march protesting black displacement, and more.