Kendrick Lamar has gone back to his Compton roots in his new video. The rapper debuted the visuals for single King Kunta on giant Jumbotron screens in New York City’s Times Square and Los Angeles’s LA Live entertainment complex on Wednesday evening.
Lamar took to Twitter to announce both screenings, simply writing “King Kunta Video. NYC. Beats Billboard. 46th and Broadway. 6PM” and “King Kunta Video. LA. Downtown LA LIVE billboard. 6PM” in tweets about two hours apart.
As well as sharing his new video, Lamar spoke about a collaboration with Prince that did not make its way onto To Pimp A Butterfly. In conversation with DJs on New York radio station Hot 97, Lamar said he and Prince worked together at Paisley Park, Prince’s Minneapolis studio, but did not have the time to see a song through to completion.
“We was in the studio and we was vibing but we was pressed … for time,” Lamar said. “He was breaking down some things that I need to consider in my career, just really taking control of your creativity. He gave me some real jewels about that.”
The 27-year-old rapper’s second album To Pimp a Butterfly last week debuted at the top of the album charts in the both the UK and US, after being streamed a record-breaking 9.6m times on Spotify in the first full day of its release.
