Video: Tory Lanez - 'Shooters'
Tory Lanez addresses police brutality in the video for “Shooters,” the lead single off his forthcoming album, Memories Don’t Die.
The controversial clip, which he co-directed with Zac Facts, begins with Tory and an accomplice breaking into a police officer’s home. Before killing the official, Lanez says he’s seeking revenge for the death of his cousin.
But two officers watch the scenario unfold from the outside and approach the two gentlemen as they’re trying to make an escape. With sirens blaring, the officers make derogatory comments and shoot Tory’s accomplice before Lanez fires back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D5SHtUtzCA
Elsewhere in the video, Tory smokes and dances while models hold guns around him. Laying on a slew of weapons, the rapper also has several ladies caressing his body. In between scenes of a woman’s bullet-riddled back, there are Donald Trump signs, flowers, and target practice symbols.
According to Lanez, the video was inspired by JAY-Z’s “Time: The Kalief Browder Story.” “His story had me surfing the internet to research all the different cases of people who were wrongfully charged and looking up the rate of how many unarmed black people get shot in a year – well in the last year – and then how many of those officers were indicted,” he told Billboard. “It was over hundreds of deaths and the percentage of the officers who were convicted was below one percent.”
“I imagined that there are times when those families have thought, ‘What if I could go kill the officer who killed my son or nephew?'” he added. “What I’m trying to preach and show with this message is no matter how you may feel about it, violence is not the answer. Even with the cops, killing us ain’t the answer either.”
Lanez is aware that the song does not match the visuals completely. In it, he raps about wanting to “go out trapping with the shooters” and asks, “Shawty, are you down to give the head to all my shooters?” But he still felt it an appropriate track for the video. “The song may not be the most ‘conscious’ song, but it’ll make you listen so much that you’ll want to watch the video,” he said. “You’ll get the message from there.”
Memories Don’t Die, the follow-up to I Told You, is expected to arrive later this year.