After a hot performance of hit “Mask Off” remix with Future during the 2017 BET Awards on Sunday night (June 25), Kendrick Lamar was called back on stage to be awarded with the Best Male Hip Hop Artist award, which was presented by Mobb Deep’s Havoc and the beautiful Lil Kim. The Compton MC beat out Big Sean, Chance The Rapper, Drake, Future and J. Cole.
While on stage during his acceptance speech, he shouted out Havoc’s Mobb Deep counterpart Prodigy, stating he was a big inspiration to one of his first albums. (Prodigy just passed away in Las Vegas last week at the age of 42.)
Considering the Compton MC’s most recent album, DAMN., is certified platinum and spent weeks in the #1 slot on the Billboard 200, it’s not a huge shock that K. Dot walked away with that win.
Speeding up to today Kendrick gives us another outlandish Damn visual.
Directed by Jonas Lindstroem and the Little Homies. The video opens up 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 jammed with powerful imagery, that illustrates a view of life in our urban America. There are police, and nuns, and criminals, to fathers and sons, including sexy women. Some may able to see their own experience reflected on screen, others may be opened up to a life they never knew with a better understanding.
Watch the video below.
