Nail Pon Cross

Album: Stony Hill (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • At the end of the song's music video, Damian Marley, an African-American boy, a Muslim woman, a cop and a gang member are all hanging from crosses. The singer told Billboard magazine how the scene summarizes the song's message about being open minded.

    "It was basically trying to say that you're judging someone based upon a stereotype," he explained. "You're judging them based on appearance, whether it's their ethnicity or their culture, without really getting to know the person. That's really what that scene signifies, you know? That's really what the song was about. This kind of passing judgment without really knowing or without judging yourself or even having a right to judge. That's really what that song highlighted."
  • Marley found inspiration in Nas’s 1999 Hype Williams-directed video for "Hate Me Now" for his own music clip.

    "The imagery in Nas’s video was made to look like a modern depiction of Christ’s crucifixion, that’s where I got the idea for the Nail Pon Cross video," said Marley. "I haven’t seen Kanye’s Rolling Stone cover and Madonna’s energy and message is a whole lot different than mine; they thrive on controversy and I am not doing this to be controversial, this is to represent the judgments that people make so if someone has a problem with the video, that is exactly what the song is talking about."

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