"DNA" | ||||
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Song by Kendrick Lamar | ||||
from the album Damn | ||||
Recorded | 2016 | |||
Genre | Hip hop | |||
Length | 3:06 | |||
Label | ||||
Songwriter(s) | ||||
Producer(s) | ||||
Damn track listing | ||||
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Music video | ||||
"DNA" on YouTube |
"DNA" (stylized as "DNA.") is a song by American rapper Kendrick Lamar from his fourth studio album Damn. Despite not being released as a single, the song received support at rhythmic radio after it's official music video was released. The second track on the album, it was written by Lamar, while the production was handled by Mike Will Made It.
The song's music video was released on April 18, 2017, and features American actor Don Cheadle.
"DNA" was the second song from Damn to be recorded by Lamar and Mike Will, after "Humble". After the first verse was recorded with the beat that Mike Will had already prepared, Lamar started rapping the second verse a capella, requesting that Mike Will build the beat around the rap. Lamar proposed that it sound like "chaos", and Mike Will put together the second half of the song with the intention to make it "sound like he's battling the beat". The song sampled a line from the song Mary Jane by Rick James.
An unreleased version of the song, with a new verse, was used during ESPN's coverage of the 2017 NBA Finals, and Lamar also appeared in accompanying promos.
The song was featured in a Beats headphones commercial starring New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
The song has been described as "the most virtuosic display" on Damn by Vice.Entertainment Weekly praises the song as "technically peerless" and Lamar's "astonishing flow". Music critic Neil McCormick, for The Telegraph calls "DNA", a "punchy electro mantra about identity".
The song's music video, directed by Nabil Elderkin and released on April 18, 2017, features American actor Don Cheadle. The video, directed by Nabil and The Little Homies, begins with Cheadle entering an interrogation room, where Lamar is being held captive and attached to a lie detector machine. After Cheadle mocks Lamar, he turns the machine on where he's shocked with Lamar's life force and begins rapping the track. From here, Cheadle and Lamar switch back and forth from rapping the song, mirroring each other's movements along the way until Cheadle finally succumbs to Lamar and lets him go. Afterwards, scenes of Lamar rapping alone along with some of his friends, including American rapper Schoolboy Q, follow. The video ends with an extended outro for the song, as Schoolboy Q approaches and punches the camera in slow motion. The video features the use of Chinese in the second half, with Kendrick subtitled "功夫肯尼" ("Kung Fu Kenny", an alternate name used throughout the Damn album) and Kendrick's crew being given "的家庭" (De jiātíng; "the family"). The Top Dawg Entertainment logo is presented alongside "顶级狗娱乐" (Dǐngjí gǒu yúlè, literally "top level dog entertainment").