Acid rain falls. Jesus Christ appears in a crowd gathered on the beach. People dressed in black pile up, forming a foreboding cyclone of human bodies. Released Tuesday (March 8), Kanye West‘s new “Hurricane” music video takes place in an edgy universe where masked digital avatars of the rapper and the song’s collaborators — The Weeknd and Lil Baby — oversee the rapture of a dystopian-looking society.
CGI animated in the style of a video game, the video’s aesthetic matches the track’s refrain sung by The Weeknd: “See this in 3D, all lights out for me.”
“Hurricane” and its album Donda are both up for Grammys this year, with the song in the running for best melodic rap performance, and the record nominated in the best rap album and album of the year categories. Meanwhile, the album’s successor has already arrived, with West releasing Donda 2 on his Stem player at the end of February.
The new video follows two other significant events recently added to the Kanye Cinematic Universe. First, he and The Game released on March 2 their objectively disturbing “Eazy” music video, a claymation visual depicting West kidnapping and burying alive a figure who resembles Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson, who is currently dating the rapper’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian. The video drew harsh backlash from those who thought the rapper, who has been vocal on social media this year about his dislike of Davidson, went way too far.
