Finishing off the biggest year in his career so far, Kendrick Lamar wasn’t letting 2015 go without releasing one final piece to bend our minds and make us think by dropping music videos for his tracks u and For Sale? in the form of one neat, and totally twisted, 7 minute short film titled God Is Gangsta.
Starting off with u, we see Kendrick deal with some pretty intense inner demons in a room alone, before being interrupted by housekeeping. Slumped in a chair or over a table, he screams his lyrics like “Loving you is complicated” and swigs from a crystal whiskey decanter. Its really intense from the get go, especially when he begins rapping about his inner guilt for leaving Compton and his friends and family behind. From here, Kendrick sobers up and the clip is the split between scenes of him being submerged into a pool, and scenes of him in a club. The juxtaposition between K.Dot being surrounded by half-naked women and being baptised in white clothing, all the while being interrupted with by messages like “I followed your rules for way too long“, is quite visceral – but given the intensity of the songs and of Kendrick himself, it’s hardly surprising.
The tracks are taken from his criticially acclaimed opus, To Pimp A Butterfly, which has seen Kendrick become one of the most influential artists in the world right now, with the rapper even receiving a “Generational Icon” award last year.. He scored 11 Grammy nominations, and his song Alright has gone onto to become invaluable in the Black Lives Matter movement. He is set to make his long-awaited return to Australia in March this year for just three shows- all of which will be nights to remember. Check details of that here and watch God Is Gangsta below:
Kendrick Lamar will be visiting Australia to headline Byron Bay’s Bluesfest, alongside two very special headline stadium shows:
March 21: Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
March 23: Allphones Arena, Sydney