“I was like, ‘Man, you know, effects have come such a long way. I bet we could do something crazy with this.’” That’s how Drake introduced his new shapeshifting video for Energy, while talking to Zane Lowe on the former Radio One DJ’s, Apple Music’s Beats 1 show.
Crazy might be the best adjective to describe the new video (which you can stream on the iTunes site) – directed by French duo Fleur & Manu who’ve previously worked with Tricky and M83 – that sees Drizzy transform into versions of Oprah, LeBron James, Barack Obama, Miley Cyrus, Kanye West and a Ken doll.
But it’s all about the haters, according to Drake: “How many people in the world feel like they have enemies?” he asked Lowe, swiftly answering his own question before the Kiwi had a chance to formulate a response.
“Everywhere you go, there’s always someone who wants to pull you down and even celebrity friends of mine or people that I don’t know. I want people to rewind it a bunch of times and go and tell someone else to watch it. It’s shocking, it’s beautiful, it’s a lot of things.” Quite.
It is kind of shocking but beautiful might be a bit of a stretch. Speaking of stretching, Drake’s bonce doesn’t always fit on the faces of the people he’s embodying, and at times the whole thing cuts up like a less sophisticated version of those Fifa games where you can superimpose a very odd version of your own head on to the body of say, Fabian Delph. But maybe that was the point, right? Perhaps the haterz can’t see Drizzy?
But in the same seven-day period where Rihanna’s BBHMM created a vortex of thinkpieces and vitriol about what should and shouldn’t be in a music video, Energy is interesting, but the shock value Drake might have wanted isn’t quite there.
