New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Snoop Dogg has made it clear that he's no Trump supporter, speaking out against the president through his 2016 campaign and again 50 days into his administration. In Snoop's latest music video for Lavender, a remix featuring BADBADNOTGOOD and Kaytranada, the rapper literally takes aim at Trump, pointing a gun at a clown dressed like the president.
Directed by James DeFina and YouTube sensation Jesse Wellens of "Prankvsprank" fame, the clip features Michael Rapaport in a city filled with clowns. In one scene, Rapaport is pulled over and shot at with a glitter gun, which Wellens says is a commentary on police brutality.
"I just had been seeing this go on in the world politically, and I actually was a cop for six years in the military, so I can kind of see it from the cop's point of view too," Wellens told Billboard. "When I originally wrote the idea of the video, the video of [Philando Castile] getting shot came out online and it was causing riots. We just kind of wanted to bring the clowns out, because it's clownery — it's ridiculous what's happening."
President Donald Trump is also lampooned in the video as Donald Klump. At one point, Snoop shoots a novelty gun at Klump, but instead of a bullet, it only shoots out a small "Bang" flag. Nevertheless, Klump is chained up at the end of the video.
He added: "It's a lot of clown shit going on that we could just sit and talk on the phone all day about, but it's a few issues that we really wanted to lock into [for the video] like police, the president, and just life in general."
Snoop says that he made this visual statement in response to many different things, including "the ban that this motherfucker tried to put up; him winning the presidency; police being able to kill motherfuckers and get away with it;" and "people being in jail for weed for 20, 30 years and motherfuckers that's not black on the streets making money off of it."
Addressing the video's controversial nature, Snoop explained his stance. "When I be putting shit out, I don't ever expect or look for a reaction. I just put it out because I feel like it's something that's missing. Any time I drop something, I'm trying to fill in a void," he said. "I feel like it's a lot of people making cool records, having fun, partying, but nobody's dealing with the real issue with this fucking clown as president, and the shit that we dealing with out here, so I wanted to take time out to push pause on a party record and make one of these records for the time being."
The original "Lavender" features KAYTRANADA and appears on BBNG's album IV, which dropped last year. Meanwhile, "Lavender (Nightfall Remix)" will land on Snoop's next LP, Never Left, the follow-up to last year's Coolaid, which could arrive in May.
