Mona Haydar – Barbarian [Official Music Video]

— D E C O L O N I Z E —
Western standards of beauty currently dominate our world because we still live in the imperial model which continues to colonize and enslave. We resist white supremacy, “western” superiority and colonized ways of thinking and being by LOVING ourselves, generously, beautifully and joyfully in spite of any active or subliminal efforts to make us feel unworthy of love and life. If drones dropping bombs and a war economy are civilized then we are proudly not that. We are BEAUTIFUL BARBARIANS, selflessly savage and uncivilized. We eat with our hands. We smell like the spices we love to eat. We love the Earth tenderly as part of ourselves, not separate, not a thing to simply profit from. We love our hair, our noses, our skin and our own ways of thinking and being. We take back terms like barbarian, savage and uncivilized and wear them proudly as we honor our ancestors. We serve Creator by living in harmony with our selves recognizing that we are completely interconnected and in a state of interbeing, always.
Love – always,
Mona

Producers: James Bunton and Corron Cole
Stylist: Feda Eid
Art Direction: Tahereh Mafi
Make up: Shabana Syed
Director: Hadeel Hadidi
Outfitters: Culture Hijabs,
Lola’s Urban Vintage
Zamarut Jewelry
Final Edit: Jude Chehab

Lyrics:

If they’re civilized,
I’d rather stay savage

We them barbarians
Beautiful and scaring them
Earth shakin rattling
Be wild out loud again

We them barbarians
Jasmine and Frankincense
Feminine invading them
Beautiful Barbarians

Say it again
Beautiful barbarian
Say it again
Beautiful barbarian
A beast before, now, they
wanna be wearin my skin
We don’t let them win
We beautiful barbarians

Lemme think back, I remember days
On these big lips, oh they used to hate
Now the script flipped
Oh, hayy!
They gotta lipkit
Kylie J

One hunnit, real talk, that’s what I’m on
If I’m a savage, then you’re a fraud
My chains off
won’t be long
see me glowing
Look at God

So fresh and so eloquent, uh
I keep it humble and elegant, ah
Your beauty standard irrelevant
A revolution is so imminent
We keep it joyful and bedouin
I see my momma as evidence, ah
Nobody needs your benevolence, wha??
Feminist planet is imminent, ahh.

We them barbarians
Beautiful and scaring them
Earth shakin rattling
Be wild out loud again

We them barbarians
Jasmine and Frankincense
Feminine invading them
Beautiful Barbarians

Say it again
Beautiful barbarian
Say it again
Beautiful barbarian
A beast before, now, they
wanna be wearin my skin
We don’t let them win
We beautiful barbarians

Barbarian? that’s how you really feel?
Like you didn’t start war over oil fields?
Opium, poppy seed.
Money moves, Cardi B.

Tried to make me hate me for my hips and nose
Now they got imposters, on a spread in Vogue
Not a single feature
That they let us own
Oh they packin fillers
Styrofoam

Ultralight beam metaphysical, huhn
Power no longer invisible, huhn
Your beauty standard is cynical, oh
A revolution is so critical
Power so deep and so mystical
They say the personal is so political, oh
Women our future is winnable
We gotta be indivisible

This nose, decolonize
This hair, decolonize
This body, decolonize
This mind, decolonized.