Kendrick Lamar came out of the gate swinging with his latest single, “The Heart Part 5.” While it seemed as though everyone loved the surprise drop last night, one New Jersey rapper is accusing Kendrick of stealing his video concept for the new song.
Kendrick dropped “The Heart Part 5” Sunday (May 8) where the visual features the rapper’s face morphing into several deepfakes, including OJ Simpson, Will Smith, Jussie Smollett, Kobe Bryant, Kanye West, and Nipsey Hussle. Many fans expressed on Twitter how the visual makes the song come alive but AK, a New Jersey rapper, says that the video premise to “The Heart Part 5” was his original idea.
AK’s 2020 song, “Family Tree” video also features himself turning into monumental hip-hop icons including J. Cole, Nas, Lil Wayne, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, and even Kendrick Lamar.
The video was released in September of 2020 and so far has over 600,000 views on YouTube.
“Kendrick Lamar’s new music video is an exact copy of my video from 2020 of my song ‘Family Tree,’” Ak posted on social media Monday (May 9).
“Maybe I’m fooling myself for thinking that Kendrick saw my video and was like, ‘Damn, that’s so good that I want to do it myself.’ But I was under Universal; he is under Universal. I did that video in 2020 with Universal. Obviously, the song didn’t do as good as if Kendrick was to do it, but the concept was so sick and I f—ing don’t know, but it’s the same exact thing — it’s a backdrop, it’s him in front of it, it’s one take.”
Check out the AK’s video and Kendrick’s below to see how they compare:
