Kendrick Lamar’s ‘DNA.’ Music Video Stars Don Cheadle [Watch]

Kendrick Lamar has released the second music video from his new album DAMN. The song, “DNA.'” is the second track on Lamar’s album and serves as a response to claims from various Fox News pundits that Lamar and other rappers are bad for black Americans.

The video begins with Lamar strapped to a liar detector machine, handcuffed, and in an interrogation room. Don Cheadle, playing the detective, walks in and mocks and taunts the Compton rapper. But before the test can begin, Cheadle experiences an electric shock and begins to rap alongside Lamar. Both Cheadle and Lamar fluctuate between extremely aggressive movements and hauntingly vulnerable ones.

The second half of the video begins with an audio clip of Fox News‘ Geraldo Rivera claiming that rap music has been worse for black people over the past several years than racism has. Lamar, with a large group of young black men around him, raps, “Tell me when destruction gonna be my fate, gonna be your fate, gonna be our faith, peace to the world, let it rotate, sex, money, murder – our DNA.”

Nabil Elderkin, who has directed music videos for Kanye West, Alt-J, NIcki Minaj, Frank Ocean, John Legend, and many others, is the director for Lamar’s newest video.

Watch the video below.

For his own part, having learned that his voice, his name, and his employer are fixtures in Lamar’s new album and music video, Rivera responded to the rapper in an 18-minute video. After calling Lamar a “great rapper” – although not as good as Drake – Rivera, alongside his brother, defends his position.

DAMN. is available now.