An Activist Group Is Using Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” To Protest Pollution

"Unilever dumped toxic mercury in the Kodaikanal, poisoning its workers and the forest. In the past 14 years, Unilever has done nothing to clean up the contamination and compensate its workers and their families, despite talking a big game about corporate social responsibility." 

The above text isn't the kind of opening title card you find in most music videos, both because pop music doesn't generally engage with corporate malpractice in explicit terms and because so few North Americans can spell 'Kodaikanal." But an Indian activist group called Jhatkaa is determined to shed light on the actions of Unilever, the world's third largest consumer goods manufacturer. Jhatkaa's petition, which you can sign here, argues that a thermometer assembly plant owned and operated by a local Unilever subsidiary dumped mercury in the historic canal, and that it failed to provide protective equipment to the factory workers or to educate them on the adverse health effects of mercury.

To spread awareness about the issue, the organization tapped Sofia Ashraf to remake Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" with Unilever in mind. The Chennai-born rapper leads marches of village residents and former factory workers through the area surrounding the canal, which is said to not have been cleaned up in the 14 years sinc the plant shut down.