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Tory Lanez Delivers a Message in his Latest Video "What Happened to the Kids"
- Damon
- May 10, 2019
- 2 min read
Tory Lanez has dropped his latest video titled “What Happened to the Kids?” and this ones different.
Over the past few weeks Lanez has been indicating that he wants to switch it up and start making music that delivers a message because he felt as though his latest music had no meaning.
Many figures in the rap and hip hop industry have shone light on a lot of America’s issues in the past. Including police brutality, poverty, gun violence, gang violence, and even politics in recent years.
Lanez used his latest video to bring attention to gang and gun violence among youths in America.
As of March 2019, 2,900 children and teens (ages 0 to 19) are shot and killed and nearly 15,600 are shot and injured every year. That’s an average of 51 American children and teens shot every day, with 7 dying.
Nearly 58% of these killings are homicide and it is black children and teens, who are most at risk. With black children four times more likely to be killed with guns than white children (everytownresearch.org).
The first half of the video shows a group of teenagers who receive an antaginazing message from a rival group. One of the boys uncle sees the message and says to the boys “Man what I taught ya’ll? Man ya’ll Go handle that”
A shooting then ensues and a young child is killed in the crossfire.
Lanez is standing around the aftermath of the shooting as the mother of the child cries.
The Toronto rapper then raps “Self-hatred what they taught us and look at all the shit it brought us mothers, daughters, sons, and sisters all in coffins and what we got to show?”
The video then switches back to when the teenagers receive the antagonizing message, but this time the uncle has something different to say.
He sees the video and tells the boys “Man listen, you dont want to do this, you dont want to go up top. You seen all the years I done did man. Let that ride it aint worth your life man, your freedom man. The same dudes was talking crazy to me and you dont want that”
The boys take the advice and do not carry out the shooting and this time, everything ends peacefully.
In real life, the situation does not end peacefully majority of the time.
With the platforms and audiences that modern rap and hip hop artists have at their disposal, it is good to see that they are using that platform to convey a message.
We saw Joyner Lucas drop a similar video with his "Im Not Racist". Hopefully these types of videos are a continuing trend in rap.
The video was shot by Lanez’s creative director, Joshua “midjordan” Farius and was filmed in Miami.
Check out the video here and let us know what you think:
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