After giving us the recent "Shooters," Tory Lanez is treating his new single to a video, which tackles the issue of police brutality head-on.
Lanez co-directed the clip with Zac Facts, with the pair attempting to show an alternative perspective on what would happen if the script was flipped for the victims of police violence, and they sought revenge.
The video begins with the message, "Sometimes the only justice is injustice." Soon we then see the Ontario artist and a friend seeking revenge on a police offer who had killed Lanez's cousin. Of course, things hardly go as planned.
The video was inspired by the documentary Time: The Kalief Browder Story, which tells the harrowing tale of a man who spent three years in the infamous Rikers Island prison for stealing a backpack. After years of abuse in prison, Browder was eventually released, yet then committed suicide in 2015 just days after his 22nd birthday.
"His story had me surfing the internet to research all the different cases of people who were wrongfully charged and looking up the rate of how many unarmed black people get shot in a year – well in the last year – and then how many of those officers were indicted. It was over hundreds of deaths and the percentage of the officers who were convicted was below one percent," Lanez told Billboard.
He continued: "I imagined that there are times when those families have thought, 'What if I could go kill the officer who killed my son or nephew?' What I'm trying to preach and show with this message is no matter how you may feel about it, violence is not the answer. Even with the cops, killing us ain't the answer either."
You can watch the video for "Shooters" below. The song is expected to appear on Lanez's follow-up to his yet-to-be-announced follow-up to his debut studio effort I Told You. Pick up I Told You on CD via Umusic.
Lanez co-directed the clip with Zac Facts, with the pair attempting to show an alternative perspective on what would happen if the script was flipped for the victims of police violence, and they sought revenge.
The video begins with the message, "Sometimes the only justice is injustice." Soon we then see the Ontario artist and a friend seeking revenge on a police offer who had killed Lanez's cousin. Of course, things hardly go as planned.
The video was inspired by the documentary Time: The Kalief Browder Story, which tells the harrowing tale of a man who spent three years in the infamous Rikers Island prison for stealing a backpack. After years of abuse in prison, Browder was eventually released, yet then committed suicide in 2015 just days after his 22nd birthday.
"His story had me surfing the internet to research all the different cases of people who were wrongfully charged and looking up the rate of how many unarmed black people get shot in a year – well in the last year – and then how many of those officers were indicted. It was over hundreds of deaths and the percentage of the officers who were convicted was below one percent," Lanez told Billboard.
He continued: "I imagined that there are times when those families have thought, 'What if I could go kill the officer who killed my son or nephew?' What I'm trying to preach and show with this message is no matter how you may feel about it, violence is not the answer. Even with the cops, killing us ain't the answer either."
You can watch the video for "Shooters" below. The song is expected to appear on Lanez's follow-up to his yet-to-be-announced follow-up to his debut studio effort I Told You. Pick up I Told You on CD via Umusic.