Kendrick Lamar has released another video to accompany tracks from his career-defining album To Pimp A Butterfly (read our review here.) Just over the two minute mark, For Free? (Interlude) is not a track per se, but the strange and unsettling second offering on the album. It follows on from abrasive, massive, George-Clinton-featuring opening track Wesley’s Theory. I remember hearing this during my first play-through of TPAB: the sprawling jazz, the woman complaining about her man not being enough of a “baller ass n*gga” and Kendrick’s dramatically pronounced response. The repeated “this dick ain’t free….” was a jolt to the system, and of course, an obvious racially-charged metaphor.
The video follows on from the provocative visual accompaniment to Alright. It takes the manic energy and surreality of it all to a whole new level.
The outlandishly frantic clip borders on, well, insane, drawing on elements of in-your-face slapstick comedy, mixed in with a kind of Tim Burton-esque brightness. As intense as it is short, the already jarring track has been brought to hyperreal life.
More absurdist theatre than a music video clip, the spoken word interlude and its new film is strange to say the least. Yet another piece in the ever-expanding puzzle that is Kendrick Lamar.
Watch For Free? (Interlude) below.