It’s safe to say that the most talked-about and conversation-stopping song on Kendrick Lamar’s brilliant and challenging new album “Mr. Morale & the High Steppers” is “We Cry Together,” a horrifyingly realistic depiction of an argument in an abusive relationship that finds Lamar and actress Taylour Paige saying absolutely horrible things to each other, with her delivering an entire verse while sobbing, and culminates with the two of them having sex.
(Trigger warning: the uncensored video features nudity, graphic language and situations.)
On Thursday, Lamar dropped a short film, in both censored and uncensored versions, for the song that stars himself and Paige, and it brings the song to life in a way that’s essentially exactly what you would expect: The two of them arguing in a small apartment, with Paige on her way to work and Lamar in a menial-job shirt — with “Dante S.” on the name tag, possibly a reference to the character of that name in Lamar’s 2012 song “Collect Calls” — and backward baseball cap bearing the combined logos of the Los Angeles Dodgers and his own company, pgLang.
The two enact the song’s lyrics — the chorus of which finds them exchanging “Fuck you, b—h” / “Fuck you, n—a” — getting in each other’s faces as she tries to get ready for work, he hides her keys and locks himself in the bathroom, she walks in through another door… and even as the intensity of their words builds, their tones and body language soften, and by the end of the song (at least in the uncensored version), she’s stripped off her shirt and they’re having sex on the couch.
The camera then pulls away slowly, exposing the film set — a statement in itself, possibly, about how much play-acting goes into a romantic relationship.