Kendrick Lamar - Rich Spirit

Intro

Our music video for Kendrick Lamar’s “Rich Spirit” taps into the ecstasy found inside solitude. A candid window into the artist’s unwatched world. The freedom to be who you are when you’re by yourself.

We’ll show the world a new side of Kendrick, one free of restrictive expectations. Dancing and singing inside the various rooms of a vintage house that reminds us of Granny’s place. Somewhere with baked-in authenticity, and lovingly decorated with items collected across a long and fully lived life. 

Each new scene will show Kendrick’s wardrobe evolving. Going from comfortable and charming to striking high-fashion looks too blinding for the public eye. Outward expressions of the inner self that feel raw, real, and wild. 

Vignettes will come together to depict the portrait of a man liberated from the pressures of the outside world. 

Reconnecting with himself, and motivating others to do the same.

Concept

We open on Kendrick praying at his bedside.

His room is wood paneled and decorated with furniture from the dawn of post-modernism. There’s a mystery to this space, a safe sedated energy that’s at odds with the current erratic era. A place where you might grow up, but not a place where you stay.

Over a series of sporadic vignettes, we explore the dimensionality of Kendrick’s rich interior life. Each scene heightens dramatic tension and builds to a spectacular climax of light and sound.

We’re with Kendrick in the living room. He’s relaxed and untroubled. Eating cereal in a bathrobe on a couch encased in plastic. Sometimes he’s dancing with an unconscious lyrical movement. Letting himself unfold and loosen up.

He picks up a rotary phone and dials a number. He smiles, sweet talking, running his hands through his hair. He flips through a contact book. Writes something down. Laughs.  

There’s an uncanny authenticity to his expressions. Exposed and fascinating.

We capture quiet moments of him exploring the rich texture of the house. He runs his hands over lace drapes. Looks over old photographs. Stands in the shower as the water washes away some unspoken sin.

We see him in a new fit. High fashion. Something pulled from the pages of a magazine. He walks through the house like he owns the place. 

Kendrick sits at the head of the kitchen table. Eyes looking far out into the distance. Deep in thought. Suddenly he hears the doorbell ring. He gets up, and nervously walks toward the door, he wasn’t expecting visitors.

He whips open the door. Sprinklers chop jets of water across a suburban lawn, but nobody’s there. He looks around and closes it cautiously.

We see him on the phone again. This time he’s tense and vindictive. Speaking with righteous rage to the imaged person beyond the receiver. We follow the wire back to the wall and see it’s unplugged.

Slamming down the receiver, he reclines in satisfaction, releasing some dark deep-seated demon.

In quick cuts, he rides a FlowRider bike through the hall lined with family photos. Turns out a closet for new clothes. Grooms himself in a blue-tiled bathroom. Our pacing gets quicker as we build to a climax.

He’s in the living room wearing a glimmering robe studded with multicolored rhinestones. Light from the sun strikes the stones, casting gleaming colorful light around the room. Kendrick’s performance is wild and spectacular. Moving with energy entirely his own.

As the song comes to an end, our attention comes back to the rotary phone.

It starts to ring and Kendrick looks at it with wide incredulous eyes.

Cinematography

Camera is candid and curious.

We begin on wides of Kendrick, establishing a sense of distance between himself and the viewer. Over the course of the video, we gradually grow closer, feeling more comfortable with him in this sacred space, joining him in moments of isolated joy and expression.

Action is intercut with composed conceptual frames that drip with symbolic detail. Taking cues from impressionist paintings, we curate this space so that everything from lighting to wardrobe feels entirely considered.

Textural moments of Kendrick interacting with the home are done in extreme close-ups. His eyes and hands direct out attention. We want to feel what he’s feeling.

Subtext is layered strategically in frame. We don’t overload shots with exposition, only offering hints to whose house this might be so that the viewer has the freedom to come to their own conclusions. We want to cultivate a sense of closeness to Kendrick. Watch him without judgment, and learn more about the man he is behind closed doors.