Kendrick Lamar's music video for 'Alright' is incredible, ties together the whole To Pimp A Butterfly album
Black and white video runs for seven minutes
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Kendrick Lamar just dropped the music video for 'Alright' and it’s a sprawling work of art, directed by Colin Tilley and seeing K-Dot float over the streets of Compton before being gunned down by a white police officer.
This isn't a simple 'song-starts, song finishes' format but a microcosm of the album, featuring chopped up snippets of 'u', 'Hood Politics' as well as the never formerly-released banger 'Cartoon & Cereal'.
There are some hugely striking visuals in the video, including one of TDE members Kendrick, Schoolboy Q, Ab-Soul and Jay Rock sitting in a car being carried by police officers as though it were a hearse.
'Tell me who the bitch n*gga hatin' on me / Jumping on my dick but this dick ain't free / To pimp a butterfly another classic CD / a ghetto lullaby for every wonder MC / My diligence is only meant to write your eulogy' he spits during a freestyle referencing 'For Free? Interlude'.
The video sees Kendrick cruising the streets as a child riding shotgun throws money out the window, later levitating in the streets, and ultimately perched on top of a street light, only to be shot down by a white police officer, though this is countered with him coming back to life and grinning from the asphalt at the close, summing up the message of the track.
The repeated soliloquy from TPAB runs through it, though amended to me more explicit.
"But while my loved ones was fighting a continuous war back in the city, I was entering a new one, a war that was based on apartheid and discrimination."
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