Leonardo DiCaprio (left) and Lil Dicky Image by GETTY IMAGES/FORWARD MONTAGE

Famously, the charity single “We Are The World,” performed by a supergroup of musicians on behalf of Africa, saved the continent and ended systemic problems of famine.

Likewise, it is expected that “Earth,” a new song featuring Jewish rapper Lil Dickey, and including solos from 30 popular singers, will save earth.

It’s a shame that, in both cases, the songs are tremendously annoying. And also unlikely to save anything.

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“Earth,” which dropped midnight on Friday, is intended as a rallying cry. “If we don’t make massive changes to our behavior over the next twelve years, the damage we’ve done to this planet will be irreversible,” the website that accompanies the song declares, reflecting findings from the watershed report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released in October 2018.

It’s true, though it’s not clear that the solution is a 7-minute-long masturbatory musical effort that absolves Germany of responsibility for the Holocaust.

The strangely malevolent-seeming song features 31-year-old rapper Dicky, whose biggest credit to date is a collaboration with disgraced domestic abuser and accused rapist Chris Brown. Dicky is represented by a retrograde cartoon avatar in a loincloth who travels to very fantastical locales greeting animals, who are voiced by the likes of Ariana Grande and John Legend.

Humorless but also tuneless, their exchanges go like this:

Cow: How’s it going? I’m a cow/You drink milk from my tits

Pig: I’m a fat, f*****g pig

Later, the voices of Meghan Trainor, Joel Embiid, and Tory Lanez announce, respectively, “We love you India!” “We love you Africa!” “We love the Chinese.” Then, Lil Dicky says, “We forgive you, Germany.”

The song ends with a long pitch by the rapper on the talents of Leonardo DiCaprio, the actor whose foundation will run the website and email list that accompany the song.

“In fact, the profits that come along with the stream and the sale of this song are going right into the earth. Let’s raise some money for charity!” Dicky finishes the music video.

It’s a statement that contradicts the one made by DiCaprio himself, who tweeted that “net profits” from the song and associated merchandise will go to groups partnered with the actor’s foundation that are working to combat climate change.

It’s an exciting view into what efforts to combat climate change will look like if responsibility is seized slowly by male opportunists. At least we know we’ll go out eleven years from now, humming an ear-worm that’s somehow grindingly dull, unimaginatively perverse, and enthusiastically colonialist.

Jenny Singer is the deputy life/features editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

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