It's pretty rare that a music video (that most airbrushed of mediums) champions body positivity (and, sadly, even rarer when the music video in question is by a male artist). Years of casually flicking between music channels have conditioned us to expect a heightened, flaw-free un-reality - which is why Kendrick Lamar's 'Humble' is being hailed as a game-changer.
Landing online last weekend, Kendrick's new single and the accompanying video is all about embracing the real over the fake or the artificial. In just three minutes, there are plenty of nods to pop culture and even religious iconography (spot the Last Supper tableau) to unpack.
One of the video's stand-out moments, though, comes towards the middle of the song. As Kendrick raps 'I’m so f—kin’ sick and tired of the Photoshop / Show me somethin’ natural like afro on Richard Pryor / Show me somethin’ natural like a— with some stretch marks,' a model appears in a split-screen frame. As she moves through the frame, she swaps from a fully made-up face, slicked back and straightened hair to natural hair and no make-up. The camera then pans to her stretchmarks.
It's a brief and arguably not entirely unproblematic moment (for some social media users, it's an example of a man telling a woman how she should look based on what he finds attractive - plus the image of a faceless female body has sparked controversy, too) but it's one that has already been widely praised on Twitter for presenting a more attainable, realistic and inclusive ideal of beauty.
Watch the full video for Humble below