Rival Charlotte High Schools Battle Hunger In Music Videos

CHARLOTTE, NC — The rivalry between two Charlotte high schools has reached a new pitch this week as Providence High School and Ardrey Kell High School vie for bragging rights in a music video competition aimed to increase awareness about hunger.

In a parody of “No Hands” by Waka Flocka, students from Providence High School rap about hunger in what is the seventh video from the school aimed at drawing awareness to the food bank campaign. Providence is also raising money for Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina in an online campaign.

And, apparently, it “had a $0 budget,” according to student Elliott Schultz, who uploaded the video to YouTube.

“Every year, the Providence Executive Board creates the CANZ video as a school tradition, creating hype for the student body to donate to Providence Student Hunger Drive,” he said on the video posting. “Don't forget to bring your cans in to the display case in the mornings, and that donating $1 = 7lbs. of food!!”

Not to be outdone, students at Ardrey Kell High School have launched their own bid in the musical competition.

“For seven years, Ardrey Kell has watched as the other high schools in our area have called them out in the annual Student Hunger Drive contest music videos,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools said on its Facebook page Monday. “This year, they've said, "No more!" and have issued 'The Response.'”

“After 7 years of disses and roasts, Ardrey Kell High School has had enough,” wrote Carson Philbin in his YouTube post of his school’s video. Students took “matters into their own hands” and produced the full song and music video from scratch, he said. “Any of the callouts/roasts are all for fun of competition as the real objective of this video is to promote the student hunger drive so we can end hunger.”

Ardrey Kell High School’s online campaign can be found here.

Providence High’s video has already caught the attention of, oddly, a trove of Russian fans, according to the Charlotte Observer, which noted that the bulk of the hundreds of comments the video has received have been in Russian. “Apparently, they think the Charlotte students are good singers,” the newspaper said.

Watch Providence High’s video, CANZ 7.0, here:

Watch Ardrey Kell High’s video, The Response, here:

Which video do you like best? Sound off in the comment section.

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