Michael Jackson‘s “They Don’t Care About Us” music video has hit a major milestone by surpassing one billion views on YouTube.
The defiant protest anthem was originally released in 1996 as a single off the King of Pop’s ninth studio album, HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I from the year prior. On the track, the superstar memorably declares, “Skinhead, dead head/ Everybody’s gone bad/ Situation aggravation/ Everybody, allegation/ In the suite, on the news/ Everybody, dog food/ Bang bang, shot dead/ Everybody’s gone mad/ All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us/ All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us.”
Filmed on location in Brazil, the accompanying visual was one of two directed by Spike Lee for the song, and features Jackson marching through the streets with a massive drum line of Brazilian kids and teenagers. (The second clip was filmed in a prison, interposed with footage of the Ku Klux Klan, the Rodney King beating, the Chinese protests in Tiananmen Square and more to spotlight human rights abuses around the world.) The making of the video was rife with controversy, as the Brazilian government attempted to ban Jackson from filming in both Rio de Janeiro and the Historic Center of the city of Salvador, known as the Pelourinho.
Following earlier singles such as the Janet Jackson collab “Scream,” “Childhood” and No. 1 hit “You Are Not Alone,” “They Don’t Care About Us” only peaked at No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100, but sparked renewed interest decades later when it was used during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2014, 2015 and 2020.
Somewhat surprisingly, the music video is the late legend’s second to join the elite club on YouTube, following the iconic visual for the Thriller-era No. 1 smash “Billie Jean.”
Rewatch Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us” below.
