The Prince Estate, in partnership with Warner Bros. Records, released a video for “Mary Don’t You Weep,” a rare recording of the 19th Century spiritual that is featured on Piano & A Microphone 1983, a nine track, 35-minute album featuring a previously unreleased home studio cassette recording of Prince solo at his piano captured in 1983.
This is the first original Prince video to be released posthumously. Directed by filmmaker Salomon Ligthelm through Stink Films and shot in New York City, the video makes an emotive statement around gun violence and its continued devastating impact on youth in America. The video pays tribute to the nearly 1,300 children that die and 5,790 that are treated for gunshot wounds each year in the United States alone.
The messaging in the video links thematically to Prince’s past activist work in Baltimore in 2015 around the death of Freddie Gray and the resulting riots that ensued in the city and beyond. That year, Prince released a protest song titled “Baltimore” – along with an accompanying documentary style video – directed squarely at the need for more compassion and peace, an ever-present theme he echoed through his career.
