K Pasa USA is a performance art group and band based in Mexico City. Combining familiar Latin tempos and beats with a modern twist, the band uses their lyrics and colorful music videos to explore queer and feminist themes. In the new video for their elastic electro-pop song "No Me Gustas Tú" (which translates as "I do not like you"), the band puts out an explicit call of resistance to Trump and his racist, anti-Mexican rhetoric.
In the song's main hook, the band's producer and rapper The TBD says, "I don't like Trump / And I don't like the wall / I'm going to dance / To La Merced." Singer Melina Gaze provides silky smooth vocals as she asks, "But what to do / When the bomb speaks English" to which fellow producer and rapper Haku Zai replies, "I will sharpen my own tongue." He then laments about wanting to "go on tour / But I am the terrorist," ending his verse with "being Mexican isn't a felony."
"The idea for the song was conceived in the wake of Trump getting elected," K Pasa USA said over email. "Despite the routine of our everyday lives, the things we consume, the things that we like and don't like, his presence looms. The pilot light of outrage and disappointment is with us even when we are discussing banalities, even when we are dancing in the market. It is something that will never be normalized — and shouldn't."
Through the vision of director Callie Barlow, the lively video switches between the focus of the three members of the band as they traverse the beautiful landscape of Mexico City. "We are in a crucial moment in history, where there is seemingly more transparency and certainly more accountability," said Barlow. "We are all implicated in the cataclysm of Trump's rise to power. With our actions we also need people to truly understand and question themselves, what we think we know, our understanding of the world, and our relationship to it. The video is about people seeking, exploring, perhaps returning — but hopefully in the end, finding the sun."