Logic brings powerful, important performance to the VMAs

By Jared Talbot | gargoyle@flagler.edu

Every year, MTV’s Video Music Awards brings to the forefront the best musicians and their messages given to us through video content. Getting to watch the best musicians get rewarded for their challenging work is fun for the fans who follow all their careers as closely as we do.

The fans are also treated so special performances that are put on each year at the VMAs. Special edition medleys are performed and some of the biggest artists come together to perform some of their top hits. Yet the 2017 award show brought us a performance unlike any other and for all the right reasons.

As Kesha introduced famous rap artist Logic to the stage to perform a hit from his latest album “Everybody,” she explained the importance behind the song. Logic along with artists Alessia Cara and Khalid were to perform his hit song titled, “1-800-273-8225” which is the number for the national suicide hotline.

The meaning behind the song is what you would expect. Logic essentially attacks the key issues of mental illnesses, suicide, anxiety and depression. Performing the song on such a big scale looked like a big deal to begin with, but that wasn’t what made the performance so special.

What truly made the performance so special was the way it was performed. Logic performed center stage with the massive electronic screen behind him repeating the number repeatedly. He brought in a choir and an orchestra, as well as several dozen people wearing the same shirt to wrap around the entire stage to make the performance even more moving. The shirt has the hotline on the front and has the phrase, “you are not alone” printed on the back. Each person wearing a shirt was a suicide survivor. He truly went all out to spread his message by doing more than just perform his song.

Beyond just the performance of the song, the orchestra, the choir and the people wearing the shirts, ‘Logic’ went even further to spread his message. About three minutes and thirty seconds into his song he decided to begin to give a speech regarding his song’s topic. He went on to say this, “I just want to take a moment right now to thank you all so much for a platform to talk about issues that the mainstream media doesn’t want to talk about: mental health, anxiety, suicide, depression and so much more that I talk about on this album.”

He attacked several other issues in his speech and ended his speech with a focus on equality. “I am here to fight for your equality, because I believe that we are all born equal, but we are not treated equally and that is why we must fight.”

Logic wanted to fight for the millions of people effected by mental illness and suicide and wanted to bring this issue to the forefront. It is important that major artists do so to make sure that the many uneducated individuals get to learn about such important issues.

What will surely make ‘Logic’ happy is to learn that Lifeline’s Director of Communications, Frances Gonzalez said his performance has caused a 50 percent increase in calls to the hotline. He wanted to spread a message of “peace and positivity,” and so far it looks like it worked.
To all battling mental illnesses, depression, anxiety and suicide, please call the Lifeline because as all the shirts in the performance said, “you are not alone.” We must never forget that.