Immigrants (We Get the Job Done) is a music video by K’Naan inspired by the world-famous Hamilton musical, produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Also featuring Riz MC (Riz Ahmed in Star Wars!). Story behind the film, via Buzzfeed:
There’s a line that gets repeated several times in “Immigrants (We Get the Job Done),” a track off The Hamilton Mixtape — “It’s America’s ghost writers, a credit is only borrowed” — and that stuck with Tomás Whitmore. On Wednesday, shortly after the video began trending, the director behind the “Immigrants” music video talked to BuzzFeed News about the story he wanted to tell with it and its political implications.
“Within the political climate and all the xenophobia that’s persisting within the conversation, it felt like a really unique opportunity to give a voice to the immigrant narrative, and to shine a spotlight on, as the song says, ‘America’s ghost writers’ — a lot of people that make this country great and that we don’t often get to see in mainstream media,” Whitmore said.
“Immigrants” is performed by K’naan, Snow tha Product, Riz MC, and Residente — all of whom appear in the video — and it samples “Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)” from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. The song was released in December on The Hamilton Mixtape, which featured covers and remixes of songs from the record-breaking musical. The titular lyric of “Immigrants” comes from a line that consistently gets applause during Hamilton, but the Mixtape version features other original lyrics.