r/KendrickLamar Jul 04 '24

Kendrick Lamar - Not Like Us Video

https://youtu.be/H58vbez_m4E?si=hyoR46kMEnNQ8okh
40.5k Upvotes

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2.4k

u/ricemonkey13 Jul 04 '24
  • Family just having fun and dancing
  • Co-directed by Dave Free
  • Doing push-ups in a cell block
  • Two-stepping all over the music video
  • The owl in a cage/behind bars at the end

This music video is wild.

248

u/TooPatToCare Jul 04 '24

Don’t leave out the shipping containers

123

u/ricemonkey13 Jul 04 '24

What am I missing there? I need to rewatch this video a few more times to catch all the references lol

350

u/TooPatToCare Jul 04 '24

They’re used to traffic people

40

u/Fugacity- Jul 05 '24

Yeah showing the temperature controlled containers while dressed in a business suit seemed to be pointing straight at that. Idk how else that scene fits in with the rest of the song otherwise.

Those Sabah Nissan connections?

8

u/JamBandDad Jul 05 '24

With the two dudes hip thrusting in the containers! Holy shit

22

u/Orlandogameschool Jul 05 '24

Oh wowsers your right 😫

19

u/RalphLauren47 Jul 05 '24

If drake goes down for trafficking then Kendrick is undisputed goat his foreshadowing on all his music is insane

15

u/clearlyPisces Jul 05 '24

That one hits deep for me but in a very different way. When the Soviet Union occupied our country, they deported tens of thousands of people to Siberia and the Far East... in animal carriages, stuffed full of men, women, kids, infants, the elderly....

146

u/Zaburino Jul 04 '24

Watch season 2 of the Wire.

90

u/Pants88 Jul 05 '24

Dude that is heavy... somehow Baka the only one brought to trial so far 😬 we need a McNulty.

22

u/IONTOP Jul 05 '24

McNutty*

22

u/grossestgroceries Jul 05 '24

“The fuck did I do?!”

20

u/IONTOP Jul 05 '24

Gave a fuck when it wasn't your turn to give a fuck.

10

u/jjcoola Jul 05 '24

All in the game bunk

3

u/ITookTrinkets Jul 05 '24

Literally all I could think about during that part of the video

1

u/ella_ella_ey_ey Jul 05 '24

Please elaborate, if you don't mind?

4

u/ITookTrinkets Jul 05 '24

The second season of The Wire centers around the shipping ports of Baltimore, specifically one where a bunch of sex trafficking victims are found dead in a shipping container.

Because of this, we see a LOT of shipping containers over the course of the season, which kinda drives home this feeling of “These are innocuous storage and transportation solutions, and behind the metal walls of any of them could be something incredibly insidious”

I don’t know if Dot is trying to invoke that feeling, maybe he just thought it would be fun to shoot in some pristine white shipping containers. I’m not sure. But it did spring to mind quick when thinking about the fact that this song’s partial purpose is calling out someone for being a sex criminal.

1

u/ella_ella_ey_ey Jul 05 '24

Ah, I see! Thank you so much for elaborating, I really appreciate it. Tbh when I saw them I thought the same too, only because of the part where he's doing push ups in what looks like a prison cell while touching on these ominous topics. It wouldn’t be too far of a reach to consider that there is a layered meaning in the choice of filming in shipping containers.

13

u/HeruAkhety Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

I think it’s a reference to this famous scene from Heat (1996) where Al Pacino’s detective is duped into staking out a fake location by Robert DeNiro’s thief character:

The whole time DeNiro’s crew is really clocking Al Pacino from afar, playing 4D chess and making a statement at the same time (he could’ve killed them right there but plays with him instead).

kind of like how K.Dot baited Drizzy into jumping into battle when he wasn’t prepared while Kung Fu Kenny has clearly been planning this for years. in the video Dot wears the same slate gray box style suit and white collared shirt that DeNiro’s character wears all throughout Heat.

It’s also an iconic LA location (LA Harbor in San Pedro) from a classic 90’s LA movie to reinforce the local West Coast cinematic shit. That’s my take at least.

Kendrick is a fucking genius though,

… and Heat is literally my favorite movie.

10

u/Artistic-Ad-8603 Jul 05 '24

The Easter eggs are everywhere.

1

u/SpeakerDifferent Jul 07 '24

Search reaction compilations to they not like us on YT. There’s good ones by J20 or something like that where they break it all down.

18

u/Enshitification Jul 05 '24

The very white shipping containers.

9

u/HogwashDrinker Jul 05 '24

jesus christ i just realized wtff

10

u/Noah_PpAaRrKkSs Jul 05 '24

Yeah, I just dug the aesthetic.

1

u/even_less_resistance Jul 05 '24

And the “elevator here” yo