Capturing a young soccer fan’s enthusiasm is not the only reason Lee wanted to make his short in Brazil. He had previously made Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us” video in Rio, which he found inspiring musically, and, for the past year and a half, he has been making a documentary about the history of the country called Go Brasil Go. “Brazil was the last country on the planet to free their slaves,” Lee says. “The last.” He expects to have the doc finished sometime before the 2016 Olympics, which will be held in Rio. “I still have at least two more trips to do,” he says. “I’ve done four trips already. I’m going to wait until after the World Cup is over and things die down.”
Because Lee was working on Pixote’s Game in Brazil, he decided he wanted to add some of the country’s influence to Kelly Rowland’s song, which was written by Sia Furler. Remembering his experience of adding new drum tracks and a sequence featuring the Olodum drum team to “They Don’t Care About Us,” he decided to do the same with Rowland’s track. “Doing a documentary, we shot this great samba school in Rio called Villa de Isabella, great percussionists,” Lee says. “So when I heard the [Rowland] song, I said, I’m going to add some drums on there. So we went to the great arranger Tunico Da Vila and recorded the drums while we were there.” Although Rowland wasn’t present for the filming of the short film (“My directive from Frank Cooper said that this was not supposed to be a music video,” Lee says), he says she has told him she loves the addition.
It’s moments like the inclusion of local drums that show why Lee wanted to shoot in the favelas in the first place. “That’s where the people are,” he says. “I don’t want to shoot on the high-rise condos facing Ipanema, Copacabana, Leblon. I want to get with my peoples.”
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/spike-lee-talks-diverse-influences-behind-world-cup-video-the-game-20140612#ixzz34RXWfKw8