John Legend drops the visual for his introspective track “Penthouse Floor” featuring Chance The Rapper, which appeared on Legend’s Darkness and Light.
Legend takes on the role as a hotel employee, who after seeing protests outside the establishment’s door, takes a trip up to the “Penthouse Floor.” As the clip continues, it highlights the Black Lives Matter movement, Colin Kaepernick and the atrocities of Donald Trump.
After a Trump supporter flings his “Make America Great Again” hat to the ground, the suite transforms into a utopia. People from all walks of life mingle and share laughs while Legend fills the room with the sound from a piano. Suddenly, everyone disappears and he realizes it was just a dream.
“The more I sat with the song as I was making the record, I wanted to have more attention in the song where I was thinking about not just upward mobility and escaping, but also thinking about what it means to come from humble beginnings like I come from, a blue collar family, where people that are often ignored and forgotten about, and to elevate to more rarified air like I am now but to not forget about where you come from,” he told Complex about the record. “And to use your power and status to uplift people and shine a light on places where we come from. That is what the song lyrically evolved to and that is what the video represents.”
Chance was unable to appear in the video but Legend gushed out their duet. “I was so happy for him to be on the song, and would have loved for him to be in the video but it just didn’t work out logistically,” he said. “I love his verse because it’s really clever and perfectly captures what the song is about.”
Legend also shares his thoughts on Eminem’s freestyle “The Storm,” calling it “dope” and “powerful.”
“I love that he’s saying we all live in this country together, and if you vote for that then you are saying certain things about what you believe and what you want this country to be,” he said. “When [Trump] says that Mexicans are rapist and killers, you can’t vote for him and not own that. When he says that he wants to ban Muslims, you can’t vote for him and not own that. When he’s the birther-in-chief and questioning the credentials of Barack Obama, the first black president, you can’t vote for him and not own all of that. Eminem is saying if you voted for that and you own that, then we are not on the same team, and I have to concur.”
Watch the video below.
