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THE STORY BEHIND HAILEY BIEBER AND OGE EGBUONU’S POWERFUL PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Community / 
August 2020

Hailey Bieber and Oge Blog Header, black and white.Hailey Bieber and Oge Blog Header, black and white.

As a collective of roughly 70 million voices, the youth vote has the power to change what is poised to be an historic election, and that’s not lost on Hailey Bieber. “I haven’t witnessed a generation in my lifetime that has been as vocal as Gen Z, and that really inspires me,” says the 23-year-old model. “They want to make a change and they’re serious about it.” And yet concerns around voter suppression are not to be underestimated, particularly when it comes to Gen Z. The barriers to voting—residency requirements, perplexing voter ID laws, lack of information about where and how to vote—are likely to affect young people in disproportionate numbers, and have only been exacerbated by the pandemic. With many college and high school campuses closed for the foreseeable future, youth-focused voter registration drives have inevitably been stymied as a result.

It’s what prompted Hailey to approach Levi’s with her latest project: a Public Service Announcement calling on eligible voters to exercise their civic duty this November. “The idea was born out of conversations I’ve been having over the last few months in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and how crucial voting is for upcoming election” says Hailey who, alongside her husband Justin Bieber, recently streamed a thought-provoking and candid discussion with the activist Angela Rye about the Black Lives Matter movement. “I want to make sure we are doing everything we can to encourage people to vote and direct them toward resources and information.” Levi’s dedication to voter education and voter turnout along with their ongoing dedication to their values made them the perfect partner for Hailey on this project.

To bring her idea to life, Hailey worked with director Oge Egbuonu, who also brought photographer Djeneba Aduayom into the creative fold, and a diverse group of co-conspirators from the realms of activism, academia, music, and film. “I didn’t want to just rely on celebrity voices, I wanted it to feel relatable and include people who are on the ground doing the work—organizers, scholars,” says Oge of the cast that includes the likes of professor Dr. Melina Abdullah, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter youth branch Thandiwe Abdullah, musician Miguel, and actor Jaden Smith. Inspired by the Harlem Renaissance and specifically Langston Hughes, Oge enlisted the help of poet Jazmine Williams, who also appears in the video; the poem they co-created forms the basis of the script. “The Harlem Renaissance had such a huge social and political impact on our culture, it was a blend of not just organizers, but artists and musicians too,” says Oge. “It also presented many ways of affecting change and that reminded me so much of this time we’re in right now, especially when it comes to Black lives. So many creatives are joining forces and handing over their platforms to activists and to political leaders.”

VOTE. GIf of black and white images.VOTE. GIf of black and white images.

As a director, Oge has always seen the world through a political and socially-conscious lens. Released on Juneteenth of this year, her directorial debut, (In)Visible Portraits, puts the experiences of Black women in America into sharp focus, challenging the stereotypes that have long been entrenched in the nation’s consciousness. “When you look at the history of this country, it was built on the backs of Black women who were typically erased from that narrative. Many people who studied the civil rights movement know that the people who did the strategic work were Black women; it was Fannie Lou Hamer; it was Ella Baker. It was these women who sat with Martin Luther King and all these other faces of the movement, who helped write the speeches, feed the community, and educate the people coming up,” says Oge. “I wanted to highlight too, that right now we’re in one of the biggest civil rights moments in history and it was founded by three Black queer women. Releasing this film was another way to amplify those voices and give space and reverence to Black women.” 

The path Oge herself has taken into the world of filmmaking is far from typical. Born into a Nigerian-American family in Houston, she initially moved to Los Angeles in her mid-twenties to pursue a career in retail. It wasn’t until a friend introduced her to restorative yoga, that Oge, now 35, found what she still considers to be her first calling. “Wellness is such a big part of my life which is why I identify myself as a storyteller, not a filmmaker,” she says. “Film just happens to be the medium through which I tell stories.” It was at the urging of Raindog Films cofounder Ged Doherty, a private yoga client of hers back then, that she made the leap into cinema. As Oge tells it though, she needed some convincing. It took Oge a couple of months of reflection and a meeting with Colin Firth, Doherty’s business partner, to accept the offer. “Collin said to me, I can only ever play a white male on screen, but there are so many more stories that need to be told—that’s why I created this production company. Our mission is to create stories around social justice. That was the moment I knew I was in.” What was initially planned to be a four-week work trip to London, ended up turning into four years with Raindog Films, during which time she worked as an associate producer on films such as Loving. 

For both Oge and Hailey, the new PSA is one of only a handful of creative projects that they’ve been a part of since the pandemic hit. Given the current political landscape, the message it carries feels especially urgent. “The first few months of being in isolation were very much about being in a space of deep reflection, reflecting on my life pre-pandemic, and then imagining what it could look like post pandemic. And then I think after the killings, it was no longer about me. I was asking myself: How do I reimagine what’s possible for the collective society?” Oge says. “What people are starting to realize is that voting is just one piece of the puzzle. You have to actively get involved and think about what your active civic duty looks like on a day to day basis.” Hailey echoes that sentiment. “Over the past few months, I’ve learned so much about why making a change in government is so vital in addressing all these issues going on in the country. I also understand that it goes so much deeper than voting for the president. We have to vote for our local government—our mayors, our senators, our district attorneys. I really hope this project can shed light on that.”