I feel completely blessed today. Surprisingly, we got a new Kendrick Lamar video for "These Walls". As other blogs and hip-hop sites salivate over Kendrick Hit the Quan with Terry Crews, they miss that this video raises the bar even higher than "Alright" and the "For Free? (Interlude)" videos did.
The Colin Tilley & The! Little! Homies-directed video runs more like a short Black Comedy special. The video stars Kendrick, Terry Crews and Corey Holcomb and it's a definite must-watch. The visuals open with Holcomb in a prison cell talking to other inmates. As their conversation progresses, he starts drifting into how he got locked up and how it was all thanks to Kendrick Lamar. That entire sequence of visuals plays right into the points he makes in the third verse, that a black man who is now behind these cell walls has to come to grips that those walls are telling him his fate. He is going to remain there due to his actions, not Kendrick's. That entire scene is actually really dope because it makes all of the points within the song while remaining hilarious thanks to Corey Holcomb.
From there, the visuals go deeper into the story Corey is telling about how he ended up in prison. The visuals follow this amazing party that's taking place all throughout this motel. Colin walks through the joint, revealing everything that's going on behind each wall of the building. I thought this represented two things. First, everything happening inside the motel display some of the vices that occur in real life: drugs, drinking and sex-sex being the most crucial part of the video. Once we get to Kendrick, he's pushed up against the wall being twerked on. That's where the visuals start to truly follow the first and second verses where Lamar starts talking about the juxtaposition of vaginal walls to cell walls. He uses that comparison to show how both can affect someone's emotions, human psyche and conscience. And how his having sex with said woman lead the prisoner to do what he did, which in this case is Corey getting upset at Kendrick taking his girl at a party. It's actually very beautifully done and that's only about the first two minutes of the video.
The final half of the video is where Terry Crews comes in. Kendrick and Terry's time together in the video is a little unclear to me. They kind of come off as visual representations for someone that carries that mentality that will land them in prison, but it comes off as a simple visual interlude within the video. But knowing K. Dot there is a deeper meaning there. After that scene it cuts back to the party winding down, we see Corey getting arrested and later sitting in jail coming to terms with the fact that it was his fault he ended up in prison. That's when he starts picking at the prison wall and he makes a clean hole inside of it. To me this clearly shows that once he took responsibility and listened to what the walls were saying he became able to figure out how to strip down those walls and determine his own fate.
This video for "These Walls" is very complex. "These Walls" is one of the most intricate songs off "To Pimp A Butterfly" so this should be expected. The visuals wanted to show all the points within the song and that's what it did in a cool eight minutes. Kendrick Lamar and Colin Tilley have another amazing video on their hands that to no surprise I loved. The only question I have is, what's next?
Check out the video below.
Photo Cred: xxlmag.com
Video Cred: youtube.com
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