It feels like a lifetime ago that Kanye West was in hot water for releasing a deep-fake music video which saw the rapper in bed naked with anyone who ever appeared alongside his name in a headline circa 2016, for better or (usually) for worse. In typical late-Kanye style, it was both groundbreaking and in questionable taste, making it both widely viewed and never replicated.
Well, it also feels like a lifetime ago that we last got new music from Kendrick Lamar, although Lamar has been cryptically teasing a new (double?) album for release this Friday. Over the weekend the first sample of that project arrived in the form of the subtly bizarre “The Heart Part 5,” which, in addition to incorporating a heavy disco influence on the instrumental, came paired with an entirely stranger self-directed visual. What begins as a straightforward clip of Kendrick rapping to the camera takes a surreal shift once he Severances into O.J. Simpson, Jussie Smollett, Will Smith, Kobe, Nipsey Hussle, and, of course, Kanye. I suppose to give the viewer a bit of a clue, the video opens with a statement from Kendrick’s new alter ego oklama: “I am all of us.”
See for yourself below.
