What happens when you combine a message about the climate crisis, music, and powerful storytelling? You get Mother Earth, the latest single by Sam Redmore featuring Abdominal, a track that is as thought-provoking as it is captivating. Each section of the track unfolds with its own tone and energy, mirroring the diversity of voices in the climate conversation. Mother Earth is more than just a song — it is a wake-up call to the effects of climate change. To learn more about the song, read on!

Where are you based?
Abdominal: I'm from Toronto, Canada, but currently living in Geneva, Switzerland.
Sam: And I’m based in Birmingham, UK.

Congratulations on the release of your latest single “Mother Earth.” Can you tell us the inspiration behind the song?
Sam: When I started working on the track, the climate emergency was something I was thinking about a lot (and still am). I decided to try and make something that musically represented elements such as rising global temperatures, sea levels and frequency of natural disasters. The way in which I went about this was to create something that constantly increased in tempo, ultimately finishing up almost uncomfortably fast and at the point of no return.

Your five-perspective approach to the lyrics is fascinating. How did you choose the specific viewpoints, and what message do you hope each perspective conveys?
Abdominal: Thanks! To be honest, I didn't really pre-select all five viewpoints prior to writing the tune. All I knew was I wanted to start with the perspective of a small child. My daughter is five years old, so that outlook was an obvious starting point for me. And then the following verses just kind of naturally unfolded from there. For example, after the innocent/straightforward outlook of the child, it made sense to then follow that up with the more data-driven perspective of a scientist in the second verse. Then I felt it was necessary to provide a counterpoint to that perspective by following it with the corporate CEO type in the third verse, just to ensure the song was as well-rounded as possible (which I felt would be more interesting than a more one-sided anti-climate crisis anthem). After which I thought it would be interesting to present the thoughts and feelings of an animal, who's directly experiencing the impacts of said CEO's actions, without really understanding why these things are happening (other than a vague sense that humans must somehow be involved). A polar bear was the obvious specific choice for this, as they've already been in the spotlight a lot around this sort of issue. And then I felt like there was no real other choice for the final verse (which is told from the perspective of Mother Earth herself), as we needed a proper 'grand finale' for the song, and that was the most obvious way to accomplish that and also wrap up the song as a whole.

As far as what message I hope each perspective conveys, that's really up to the individual listener. But I'd like to think/hope that together they present a comprehensive view on the current climate crisis, in an interesting and unique way, without just ramming a bunch of easily Googleable facts down the listeners' throats.

How did you go about formulating these five perspectives and what led to this creative decision?
Abdominal: Well, for the specifics of each verse, please refer back to my answer to the previous question. But as far as the overall decision to go with this 'five-different-perspective' approach, that actually began with the music first. Sam sent me the instrumental in pretty much its already finished form, complete with the five distinct verse sections. And that's a lot compared to a typical rap song (which usually have at most three verses). So I tried to think of a way in which I could best keep the song interesting for that duration; and the concept of five different 'characters' was the best I could come up with! I pitched it to Sam, he dug it, and we never looked back!

Did you discover any new creative insights or techniques while working together on “Mother Earth?”
Sam: The constantly increasing tempo of the track is something I’ve never done on a piece of music before, so that took some serious work to get sounding right. I knew already that Abdominal has the ability to rap super fast, so whilst I was confident he was just the right person for the job, I think it still required him to use all the tools in his arsenal to really get it nailed.

What do you hope listeners take away from the combination of music and lyrics in this track?
Sam: First of all, I hope they enjoy listening to the track. Regardless of the message, if it’s not good to listen to in the first place then I haven’t done my job properly. Secondly, I would like it to just get people thinking and talking a bit more about the climate emergency. I’m not sure it will make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, but it’s an important issue and something I’m glad to have addressed in my music.

What are your hopes for the legacy of “Mother Earth” within the broader conversation about climate action?
I don't really have any to be honest. Like most of my music, I just do the best job I can with the whole conceptualizing, writing, recording, and promoting process, then once the songs are released, they tend to kind of just take on a life of their own that you don't actually have that much control over. In an ideal scenario however, of course the track would spread far and wide, helping to spread awareness of this crucial issue that humanity is currently facing, and possibly even convert a few skeptics/deniers!

The animations for Mother Earth are incredibly striking. Can you share how the concept for them was developed and what inspired the visual style?
Maculate: Absolutely. Jalapeno came to me with the project and said that they wanted five distinct styles for the five different perspectives which was very exciting to me. I loved the challenge and opportunity to really create an entire world and narrative around the track. I prototyped several different styles for each of the character's perspectives based on some intuition on what might feel right for the vibe of the track. I listened to the track over and over again while doing that prototyping. For the child's perspective, I wanted something gentle, beautiful and innocent. The first style that I set was this one and went for a feeling of an animated painting, a style that I have always loved and felt like it matched well with a child's perspective of the world. For the second perspective of the scientist, I wanted something that felt a bit more rigid with bold outlines and went for a comic book style animation. For the third, the CEO, I wanted a very harsh almost black and white depiction of the world due to the CEO's selfish focus on money and profit while disregarding the impact of his actions. So I settled on a duotone style utilizing red, black and white very much like a graphic novel. I chose Toronto landmarks for some of the city backgrounds in this section and the scientist's section as a nod to MC Abdominal's city. For the Polar Bear's perspective, I wanted something natural and beautiful reflecting the Polar Bear's habitat so I chose animated water color. And finally for Mother Earth's dramatic conclusion I wanted there to be a sense of the entire world in chaos so I went for a vibrant surrealist style with these creatures representing nature and our planet fighting back against mankind and reclaiming the planet from the destruction man is selfishly creating.

The animations feature a mix of vivid imagery and symbolism—can you talk about the choices behind these visuals and their connection to the song’s themes?
Maculate: The track gets faster and faster as it goes so I wanted to create a sense of progression in the degradation of the planet through each different art style. There is a level of urgency that builds through the music and the lyrics and wanted that to be reflected in the animation. I use fire a lot throughout the video as a striking visual indicator of a world in ruin. When humans see red and fire they immediately think danger which is exactly how seriously we should be taking the challenges climate change creates. We start to see it in the child's section and then it is ever-present throughout the rest of the video showing the dire state of the climate emergency. In the Polar Bear section I really wanted to get a sense of this dichotomy between this beautiful environment and fires raging across an environment that we don't expect fires to be present in. I wanted a sense of progression in the environments that we see from a smaller town with the child, to Toronto, to the entire environment represented by the arctic and finally escalating to the entire planet in the final section with recognizable landmarks like the Eiffel Tower on fire and flooded. I used a lot of instruments being played through the video, both reflecting the beautiful orchestration in the track as well as a bit of an homage to the Titanic violin players (including various characters playing violins in the music video) that reportedly kept playing until the end to keep people calm as the crew loaded the lifeboats.

What actions do you hope listeners will feel inspired to take after hearing Mother Earth?
Abdominal: I don't really pretend to harbour any hopes or expectations at the end of the day. Ideally though, I would say maybe the song will at least help raise some awareness of the issues we're facing. And then, armed with that newfound awareness, listeners could go on to make their own decisions re. what steps they can personally take that make sense and are feasible for them, given their own unique circumstances.

You also released a new album called “Modulate.” Can you tell us more about this album? What makes it unique from your previous work?
Sam: ‘Modulate’ is my second album of original material, following on from 2022’s ‘Universal Vibrations’. It is a melting pot of different genres - taking inspiration from house, disco, afro, latin and beyond - and is built around a foundation of electronic music mixed with live instrumentation.

I was by far more confident in my abilities to create music whilst working on this one, and I think this allowed me to take things in directions I wouldn’t previously have done. For example, I would probably have not made ‘Mother Earth’ for the first album, simply because I wasn’t sure enough of myself to try something as conceptual and with such a direct message to it.

Are there any upcoming projects you would like to share?
Sam: I’ve got some more singles from this album to come in the first half of next year, so keep an eye out for those. First one is called ‘Woah!’ and releases at the end of January.
Abdominal: Just starting now to work on a hip-hop album for kids, with the UK's DJ Format.

It has been a crazy past few years, how have you been staying positive?
Sam: I think it’s important to try to take as much joy as you can from what you have in life. I have a loving family, a new album to be proud of and I get to do what I love doing pretty much every day — all big reasons to be positive.

What is your motto in life?
Abdominal: So long as you're still breathing, you've got more positive going on in your life than negative, so just start from there and keep moving forward!

To learn more about Sam Redmore, Abdominal, and Maculate, please follow the links below:
Instagram:
sam_redmore
mcabdominal
djmaculate

Bandcamp: Sam Redmore

YouTube: maculate

Sam Redmore and Abdominal's Mother Earth - When Song Meets Art