PJ Harvey has released a video for “Community of Hope,” the controversial new track from her upcoming album The Hope Six Demolition Project that has riled American politicians due to its depiction of the underdeveloped Ward 7 area of Washington DC.
“They took one of the old notorious housing projects and they leveled it and rebuilt it as mixed income housing. It’s called Hope 6 and it’s supposed to sort of rejuvenate everything. It certainly looks a lot better,” someone with a local accent explains at the start of the new video. By the end, a local choir singing the refrain, “They’re gonna put a Walmart here,” hints at the idea that development has been delivered with unequal access for sections of the community.
“It’s the Hope Six Demolition Project, stretching down to Bennet Road, a well known pathway of death, at least that’s what I’m told,” Harvey sings, later adding, “Ok now, this is just drug town, just zombies, but that’s just life in the ‘Community of Hope,’” and “Here’s the highway to death and destruction, South Capitol is it’s name, and the school just looks like shit-hole, does that look like a nice place?”
Politicians reacted angrily to the song on its release, with the former Mayor and Ward 7 council seat candidate Vince Gray saying, “I will not dignify this inane composition with a response,” and his campaign treasurer adding, confusingly, that “PJ Harvey is to music what Piers Morgan is to cable news” — an unlikely comparison if ever there was one.
PJ Harvey’s upcoming album The Hope Six Demolition Project is out on April 15.
Credits
Photography Maria Mochnacz