Music

David Guetta’s Tone-Deaf “Shout Out” To George Floyd’s Family Has Broken Our Brains

"We’ve found it. The whitest way to react to racism."

by Jared Richards  1 June 2020
David Guetta's 'shout out' to George Floyd's family has been called tone-deaf

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Footage of David Guetta “shouting out” George Floyd’s family during a live-streamed DJ set has been widely ridiculed online for being unfathomably tone-deaf.

This is Guetta’s second live-stream during the pandemic: back in April, he DJ’ed on-top of a Miami skyscraper and fundraised more than $750,000 USD for WHO’S COVID-19 relief fund and Feeding America. The New York edition was on 30th May, coming the week of Floyd’s death by police hands — the shocking footage of which has prompted mass protests across the US.

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In it, Guetta spoke into the mike to make a statement under pulsating EDM.

“The world is going through difficult times and America too, actually, so last night I knew we were gonna do this,” he said.  “I made a special record so this record is in honour of George Floyd and I really hope we can see more unity and more peace when things are already so difficult. So shout out to his family.”

The mix then samples MLK’s ‘I Had A Dream’ speech before a sick drop comes in, prompting Guetta to fist pump.

The moment first caught attention thanks to producer Hudson Mohawke, who tweeted out clipped footage of the moment and wrote “dono where to start w counting the levels of tone deaf and wrong here.”

As people began to make fun of the moment, HudMo stepped in to clarify that Guetta’s intentions are cleary in the right place: he’s just so ill-equipped (and also not a native English speaker) to make the statement he’s trying to make.

“Clearly he’s not intending to offend and he’s attempting to do a noble thing by raising some money for a good cause but the execution is so hilariously off key in so many ways it’s mindblowing,” he wrote.

To be fair, Guetta raised $450,000 USD for COVID-19 charities with this May live-stream. His comments, while a bit off, are still a lot better than silence — something which many DJs are, particularly suspect in an industry so indebted to the work of black musicians and genres.

However, that doesn’t change that his decision to give MLK an EDM remix is so ill-advised and so tacky that it has left the internet reeling. Find some of our favourite reactions below.