Kendrick Lamar commanded 2015 (and the subsequent Grammys) with his To Pimp a Butterfly, an audio essay of sorts on the black experience in America. His previous release, good kid, m.A.A.d. city, had a narrower focus, illustrating Kendrick's life in Compton, Calif., and now, surfacing seemingly out of nowhere, is a video companion piece to the album.

Not a documentary or a music video per se, m.A.A.d., directed by Kahlil Joseph and presently housed on cinematographer Chayse Irvin's personal website, is a portrait of life in Compton soundtracked by a number of m.A.A.d. city cuts. There are no names provided, no plot lines, no real context to the film, and Kendrick only appears in home footage dating back to 1992, when the rapper would have been around four or five years old.

Much like the album, the mini-movie does quite the number on viewers, imposing a sense of violence, crime and survival throughout. Old home footage contains such quotes as "Go get the pump" and "I wanna kill somebody" while a cut screen uses the Amiri Baraka quote, “We used to know we were stronger than the devil.” The use of sound — Kendrick songs interrupted by gun shots — adds to the sense of instability and abrupt change. The hyper-real, such as night time shoot outs in the street, is juxtaposed with the frighteningly surreal, such as the below image of a man hanging upside down from a street light, to create a sense of otherworldliness. 

Watch the m.A.A.d. short film now.

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