Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us' Video Reasserts His Claim as Rap's ...

From its opening moments, it’s clear that Kendrick Lamar’s new “Not Like Us” music video serves as more than just as Lamar’s victory lap in his culture-twisting diatribe against Drake. It’s also a reaffirmation of a claim he made—or, perhaps, a goal he set for himself—last summer: that he, KDot, is the best-dressed MC in rap.

Following a strobing black-and-white interlude, the “Not Like Us” visual—directed by Lamar and his pgLang co-founder Dave Free—kicks off with the rapper in a crisp white Willy Chavarria track jacket, matching below-the-knee shorts by British design duo Stefan Cooke, hiked-up white tube socks, and white Chuck Taylor lows, with a sporty scarf by the British designer Martine Rose knotted around his usual blue Dodgers cap. From there, the video devolves into a gleeful parade of choice luxury labels and contemporary haute streetwear.

In the clip, KDot leads the charge of a rollicking crowd wearing a distressed Ghetto Rodeo x Kaló Soil baseball cap, Loewe biker boots, and leather moto bomber and tailored cargo pants from Martine Rose; he later changes into the designer’s boxy green field jacket and Velcro-strapped loafers. He smashes an owl-shaped piñata wearing a white tee and a pair of silver sequined Loewe shorts. He hopscotches, to the unfortunately catchy trill of “A minorrrrrrrr,” in a Kaló Soil zip-up hoodie and a Martine Rose monkey graphic tee. He peacocks, triumphantly, in front of a wall of shipping containers wearing a sleek Prada suit.

The result is a video that feels like Kendrick flexing his “best-dressed moving forward” credentials—while also anointing his own personal “in” crowd of vibey menswear designers. Rose, Chavarria, and Loewe’s Jonathan Anderson et al are his friends, and they are locked in. It’s relevant, too, that the overall “Not Like Us” style frenzy was crafted by a cogent fashion hivemind: Kendrick worked again with his go-to stylist Taylor McNeill, the video’s wardrobe was coordinated by Complex alum Karizza Sanchez, and The Cut’s Jessica Willis styled Free and the dancers.

Kendrick Lamar, wearing a black Martine Rose track jacket, in his “Not Like Us” music video.

The particular emphasis on Martine Rose cements the aforementioned British designer as a crucial collaborator on Lamar’s ongoing fashion journey. “Wear Martine when I board jets,” KDot rapped on his loosie track “The Hillbillies” last summer, not long after he wore a full Martine look on stage at the 2023 Grammys. The Kendrick-Martine connotation is so potent that fans speculated the Nike Shox he danced around stage in during his boisterous Pop Out concert last month could be a yet-unreleased collab with the designer.

“I think we understand each other on a creative level,” Rose told British Vogue of Lamar last fall, adding that she was thrilled to learn the rapper had name-checked her in the song. “His work is rooted in people’s experience and that’s the way I approach collections, too. It’s fragments of things that feel real.”

Interestingly enough, even just three years ago, Martine also had a friendly collaborative relationship with Drake, who appeared in the designer’s video project “What We Do All Day,” the premise of which centered on how creatives around the world filled their time during Covid lockdown.

“God, what a sweetheart!” Rose told GQ of the Toronto rapper in 2021. “I just love him.”