Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' Gets an Official Video After 48 Years

To promote the vinyl release of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On Live on October 18th, Motown Records has released a music video for the classic album's title track.

Directed by Savanah Leaf, the video starts with the late crooner Gaye on stage asking the question, “Who really cares, to save a world in despair?”

To connect how the song is still relevent today, the video then transitions to the present, putting on display the problems in today's world that forces us to ask the question "What's Going On?", i.e. Flint’s water crisis and healthcare to heinous school shootings and police brutality.  “This is a historic song for an important moment in history, and what’s beautiful is that its message is timeless and universal,” Leaf told the audience at recent panel discussion in Washington, D.C. “It’s about human emotions, human relationships and a coming together. My hope is that our music video will remind people to continue asking the question Marvin Gaye asked in 1971.”

The vinyl release of What’s Going On Live will contain Gaye’s vocals from his May 1972 concert at the Kennedy Center in his hometown of Washington, D.C. during Marvin Gaye Day.

What’s Going On Live is not the first second Gaye project to be released this year: his 1972 album You’re the Man was released in March.

Watch below: