Real Love On Set From St. Pete Community In Music Video

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — With divisive politics and a coronavirus pandemic making 2020 a difficult year, a music video filmed around the Tampa Bay area seeks to remind us to respond to all human beings out of love.

"Every set, every active duty military member, every first responder, every family member, every civilian that gave their time and energy to make this happen, came with a divine energy of connection and love tied together by this music and the purpose to remind us all that we are one, love is all we need," said music video producer Supna Doshi.

Doshi and co-founder Adam T. Cummings of Alinea Production, a Tampa Bay video production company, produced a music video for multi-award winning Sony Music artist B. Taylor that would require the Joint Chiefs of Staff approval. Taylor is a Navy veteran.

The music video had to be approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for release to the variety of military channels with its sole audience of active-duty military members. Certain things they were required to check for in the video is to make sure the military members and veteran community properly represented their branch of service.

"We Are One, Love Is All We Need," is a song about everyone coming together, showing love and dropping prejudice attitudes. It features country music singer, J. Michael Harter.

Toward the end of August, veterans from every branch, diverse families, a St. Pete police officer in uniform and individuals from other communities who represented one love and diversity in his video showed up to St. Pete Pier and stood behind Taylor as he sang. They were instructed to sing along with Taylor in certain parts of the video, and after several takes and some laughs at their mess-ups, they got the words and rhythm down.

Taylor, whose parents who have been his rock and foundation since he was a little boy are normally at every one of their son's music shoots. This wasn't the case for "We Are One, Love Is All We Need," because both of his parents were recovering from the coronavirus. But Taylor did have a family in St. Pete on that day.

In between one of the video takes at The Pier, Taylor turned around with tears in his eyes to the diverse cast and shared his love for his parents with them, and he expressed deep gratitude toward everyone who showed up on set because he told them they felt like his family.

"When I saw everyone just waving their one finger up in the air side to side, even the spectators watching them do it, I saw the power of this song," said Taylor. "We had all different races there, kids, first responders, cops, veterans, it was what America is made up of."

Taylor shared that it made him think of his parents, who never taught prejudice, always were disciplinarian parents, but parents of love.

"Since I have been in the music business they have never missed a video or anything I have ever done in my life," he said. "I was just so thankful as they slowly recover from this deadly virus that they will be able to see my greatest work so far."

Benjamin Smet, a St. Petersburg native and Navy veteran, who had worked on a veteran task force project with Navy veteran and singer, B. Taylor, a few years ago connected Alinea Production with Taylor for the music video shoot.

"A few months ago, B. Taylor told me he just finished his latest song, and it was going to kind of be like the anthem, 'We Are The World,' from back in the day," said Smet. "The title of B's song is 'We Are One, Love Is All We Need,' and he reached out to me for video crew advice because he didn't want your typical Hollywood type crew for this video."

At the same time, Doshi wanted to be put in touch with Taylor because she wanted to ask him for music video production advice. Smet put them in touch and the next thing he knew, Taylor offered the video production project to Alinea Production.

"I was inspired to write this song two years ago, from being all over the world as an artist; all of the gun violence with the schools, churches, the homeless veterans, PTSD issues, mental health issues," said Taylor. "I just sat down one day and started writing this song."

Taylor flew from Las Vegas to Florida in August and met up with Alinea Production team, and it took them 10 days of filming on over 30 sets across Florida that included military bases, The Pier in St. Pete. St. Petersburg Police Department and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers stadium to create the video for Taylor's song.

Taylor has active-duty military members from every branch in his video.

Taylor knew from Smet that working on set with the veteran and first responder community in Tampa Bay would feel like family.

After 45 days of Doshi's first conversation with Taylor, working over 24-hour days when they went into production, travel and editing, the completed video was sent to Joint Chiefs of Staff and approved.

Patch editor Skya Luckey, a Coast Guard veteran, is in B. Taylor's video.