This week on The Deep Dive: How Kendrick Lamar shared his m.A.A.d city to help us find (and overcome) our own, I think Bo Burnham might agree with Doja Cat, Sprint doesn’t exist anymore (no, I’m not kidding), capitalism left teens with nowhere to go, and we may respect Tony Soprano but there’s no way we could possibly envy him, right?

Don't forget to check out all the newsletter-recommended video essays to date in The Deep Dive’s YouTube playlist!

MUSIC

The 24 Hours That Changed Kendrick Lamar's Life by Spacial (1:03:21)

Every so often, a video leaves me staring at the screen absolutely speechless. Suddenly, the task of writing a summary feels impossible – how could I do a video like this justice in a few lines of text? Well, here goes nothing. In this video, Spacial breaks down the meaning behind each song in Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, and OH MY GOD the storytelling. The symbolism. The double entendres. Kendrick’s brain. As someone who loved this album, listened to it religiously throughout my freshman year of college, and still managed to miss every single theme (peer pressure, self-love, combating temptations, hope), I am not worthy of this level of analysis and artistry. I have nothing more to say, just watch this video.

INTERNET

Bo Burnham vs. Jeff Bezos by CJ The X (2:26:14)

Jeff Bezos may have won capitalism in the purest sense, but Bo Burnham’s Inside shows us what we lost in a system that reduces every human to a customer. In 2021, Burnham released his most recent comedy special, which was widely understood to be a piece of art about the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it affected us. In this video, CJ The X looks past the “COVID make man sad” message and digs deeper into the story through a series of rabbit holes and tangents including AI, parasocial relationships, transhumanism, the meaning of a soul, and performance in a culture war. If Inside isn’t (really) about COVID, what is it about? Why do we go so quickly from being terrified of new technology to no longer noticing it? And have we really all turned into meme-obsessed cyborgs that speak only in short-hand zingers?