Kendrick Lamar just keeps blessing us with new material to pour over and pick apart this year. For his latest trick, Kung Fu Kenny shared yet another video from his most recent album DAMN, this time for the song “Element.” It’s actually kind of a swerve on the Compton rapper’s part. Everyone had been expecting and anticipating a visual component to accompany the single “Loyalty” that features Rihanna. In fact, footage supposedly taken from that shoot made its way online just last week. As usual, when it comes to Kendrick Duckworth Lamar, you should always expect the unexpected.
Directed by Jonas Lindstroem, the video opens with an image of a hand emerging from a body of water, before shifting to scenes featuring bloodied people, burning buildings, and finally Kendrick himself who raps the initial verse in a bloodstained white t-shirt and jeans in front of a beautiful blue sky. The entire video is packed with powerful imagery, that depicts a view of life in urban America. There are police, and nuns, and criminals, and fathers and sons, and starkly beautiful women. Some may see their own experience reflected, others may come away with a better understanding of a different way of life entirely.
You can catch Kendrick’s “Element” video above.
