Logic has been having a pretty great week. After making his animated TV debut on Sunday’s new episode of Rick and Morty, the 27-year-old rapper released his latest music video on Thursday for “1-800-273-8255,” (ft. Alessia Cara, Khalid), which has already gotten over two million views on YouTube — at the time of this writing — in the 24 hours or so since it dropped. The nearly seven-minute-long clip stars Nolan Gould from Modern Family as a gay teen in an interracial relationship, featuring Don Cheadle and Matthew Modine as the boys’ respective fathers. (Luis Guzmán also pops up in the video as a high school track coach.)
The story that plays out a familiar one. The teen boys are both forced to hide their relationship at school and at home, as Nolan’s character’s family is even seen initially welcoming the African American teen at the dinner table as they all raise glasses and clink. Things abruptly change, however, when Modine’s character finds the boy in bed together, which causes the African American teen to go into a downward spiral of suicidal thoughts. Thankfully, unlike many stories similar to this, this one does not end in tragedy — in what feels like a Six Feet Under inspired ending.
In the liner notes for video, Logic writes:
In the first hook and verse we hear a person at the end of their rope who has called the suicide hotline. Plain and simply; they are ready to commit suicide, feeling they have nowhere else to turn and are expressing the reasons why they wish to commit this act. In the second verse we then hear words from the perspective of the hotline operator who in turn gives them many reasons to keep fighting for their life. Expressing that this act is a permanent solution to a temporary situation. On the final hook and outro we then hear the caller express their new lease on life and outlook on a life that they thought was over but had actually been far from it all along.
Combined with the visuals, the video makes for a powerful anti-suicide statement, and with any hope it will reach others out there who are feeling at the end of their rope.