Jay Rock and Black Hippy Can’t Stand Themselves in “Vice City” Video

Your kids and your corporate bosses will tell you that branding is important. Building a recognizable public face is the only way to survive in hip-hop or in late capitalism writ large. That's why it was surprising that, when Kendrick Lamar vaulted to fame around the turn of the decade, he and his Black Hippy compatriots declined to capitalize on the group name. Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q and Jay Rock quickly burned through the blog circuit, but stated publicly that they had no plans for a quartet album. But now, five years later, they appear under the Black Hippy banner on Jay Rock's highly anticipated 90059. "Vice City" explores the kind of impure qualities that haunt so much of Lamar's music; each of the four MCs employs a stilted, stop-start flow to self-deprecating effect. In the video, the four members fill an otherwise empty warehouse with a gang of strippers and, presumably, a whole lot of guilt.