Its no surprise, then, that his video for latest track 'Alright,' taken from his second album To Pimp a Butterfly, is an extended rumination on the social issues preoccupying his work: discrimination, apartheid and police brutality. While Alright follows the heavier material of TBAF at large, Kendrick and Tiley have teamed up for an utterly beautiful visual treat that captures Alright. Directed by Colin Tilley and The Little Homies Kendrick Lamars purifying hip-hop narratives are equivalent to a long read. Alright was shot in the Bay Area (Oakland and Treasure Island) and LA. "That song could've went a thousand other ways," Lamar says with a grin. The Colin Tiley-directed Alright video follows the previously released vid for To Pimp A Butterfly’s King Kunta. And it's clear that it took much more than the beat and hook coming together for "Alright" to become "the protest song of our generation" (as Rick Rubin puts it). The anthemic nature of the song, the symbolic importance of its chorus, and its deep references to African American history (" 40 acres and a mule") are all surgical and deliberate.
Not playing the victim, but still having that 'Yeah, we strong.'" I wanted to approach as more uplifting, but aggressive. The shooting death of a 12-year-old black boy named Tamir Rice by two white Cleveland Police Department officers.Īs Lamar puts it, "There was a lot going on - still to this day there's a lot going on.The death of a 43-year-old black man named Eric Garner at the hands of two white New York Police Department officers Garner was being arrested for selling loose cigarettes at the time of his death.The shooting death of an 18-year-old black man named Michael Brown by a 28-year-old white police officer, and the weeks of protest that followed. The music video for the song was released in June 2015, directed by Colin Tilley, appears exclusively in black and white, displaying shots from both San.