Helen Mirren stars as Kendrick Lamar’s therapist in new video for ‘Count Me Out’

Kendrick Lamar has shared a music video for his ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ cut ‘Count Me Out’, recruiting the iconic Helen Mirren to star as his therapist.

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The clip begins with Lamar sitting pensively at a piano, facing away from Mirren as she calls for him. The pair briefly riff on an incident wherein Lamar stole a random woman’s parking spot, before Mirren sheds her levity and says to the rapper: “You texted me at two o’clock in the morning, ‘I feel like I’m fallen.’ Why do you feel that way?”

Lamar sighs and answers, ‘Life,’ with the scene cutting into three sections: close-up, monochromatic shots of Mirren and Lamar on the left and right sides, flanking a square visual – cutting between tonally disparate shots of various unrelated scenes, mostly in colour – in the centre. The bookending shots remain unchanged for the remainder of the video, with Lamar rapping along to ‘Count Me Out’ as Mirren stares at him inquisitively.

Have a look at the video – which Lamar co-directed alongside Dave Free – below:

‘Count Me Out’ is the fourth video from ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ to receive a music video, following ‘N95’ in May, ‘We Cry Together’ in September and ‘Rich Spirit’ in November. The lattermost clip tailed the news that Lamar had been nominated for eight Grammys in next year’s awards, most of which at the hand of his standalone single ‘The Heart Part 5’. 

Meanwhile, ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ arrived back in May as Lamar’s fifth album. It scored a a five-star review from NME’s Kyann-Sian Williams – who called it “a cathartic, soul-baring autobiography” – while the album also came in at Number Five on NME’s list of 2022’s best albums, and ‘N95’ scored Number 14 on NME’s Top 50 songs of the year.

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