Where Is the Love?

Music is a medium in which people can express their feelings, as well as receive many strong messages across this medium efficiently. This is seen frequently in the music industry as many groups take this as an initiative to spread a message they find important. The Black Eyed Peas are a group notorious for this type of social communication. "What's wrong with the world mama, people livin' like they ain't got no mamas." The first line of one of the most emotion-filled and thought provoking songs of the past 10 years causes the audience to think immediately. The Black Eyed Peas' song "Where is the Love?" aims to inform their audience about the reality of America's society. The group uses this song to reflect upon the issues of racial discrimination and war in America.Three concepts that appear in the lyrics of this song that serve as an aid to get their message across are logos, ethos and pathos. Logos being the basic logic that people can gain from something, ethos is the credibility of the piece being discussed and pathos is the emotional factor and touching people in some way, good or bad. The Black Eyed Peas employ the rhetorical appeals of pathos, ethos and logos to effectively impact their audience in order to raise awareness.

Many of their songs portray similar core values and express many reoccurring themes. The targeted audience of their song is the youth. Their music promotes action for change. The Black Eyed Peas specifically call to action on certain issues such as the youth being corrupted by society and how they all must start the movement. One specific song, paired with its music video inspires many of these common ideas. The song, “Where is the Love?” does an excellent job tying together many serious issues into a musical piece paired with imagery. The music video for "Where is the Love?" is getting the message out that change in the world starts with the individual. With these images and sounds, The Black Eyed Peas are able to tackle and reflect...