Flying Lotus - Never Catch Me ft. Kendrick Lamar

What this video is

Released October 2, 2014, as the lead visual for Flying Lotus's fifth studio album You're Dead! (Warp Records), 'Never Catch Me' arrived at the confluence of Kendrick Lamar's ascent toward To Pimp a Butterfly and the critical peak of the Brainfeeder label's cultural influence. The video engages directly with Black American traditions of death, grief, and spiritual transcendence — staging a children's funeral as an…

Why it matters

A landmark of 2010s abstract hip-hop and experimental beat music visual culture. The video synthesizes Brainfeeder's psychedelic jazz-rap aesthetic with prestige short-film direction, elevating the music video form into a meditation on Black mortality and transcendence. Its influence on the…

The director

Hiro Murai (born 1983) is a Tokyo-born, Los Angeles-based filmmaker. He is known for music videos for Childish Gambino, Earl Sweatshirt, Chet Faker, and Flying Lotus. He rose to prominence directing and producing the FX series Atlanta (2016–2022) with Donald…