Flying Lotus – Never Catch Me

Earlier this month, Flying lotus put out the video for Never Catch Me and while the song is superb on its own merits, the video might be the best of all things. First, there’s FlyLo’s music. It starts off just testing keys before settling into the bars that will carry the rest of the song. It’s not somber per se but it is low and soulful. Still, his piece maintains a playful air with clapping, scat and a jazzy improvised bass solo.

Kendrick takes this energy and hits us with a verse that combines fear of death with the need to control that fear. It’s classic Kendrick. It’s urgent and thought provoking with boasts comparing his flow to a “bomb detonation” followed by requests to “please don’t bomb my nation.” He rounds it out with the hook, “say you will never ever catch me.”

Guys, trust me when I say it’s magical. I defy you to tell me that hook doesn’t make you nostalgic for school yards and games of tag too close to traffic.

And we haven’t even gotten to the video yet. Hiro Murai takes the director’s chair and sets up a funeral scene with mournful adults and child-sized caskets. The caskets are soon emptied as the bodies, a boy and a girl, break into some Lindyhop. They’re dancing does nothing to invigorate the older attendees but the kids themselves are joyful and irreverent in a way that jives with FlyLo’s beat. Apparently filming was a strange case of reality mimicking art. The dancer’s parents immediately broke out into tears when they saw their children in caskets but while on set the dancers themselves made a lot of jokes about how funny the boxes smelled.

There’s a lot of art going down in this music video. Flying Lotus plays an at once soulful and whimsical melody, Kendrick deals with death as a victim and a conqueror, and Hiro shows us mortality through the eyes of children versus adults. It’s also a fun experience. Enjoy it brain off or on.