J. Cole delivered the official video for his first single off his highly anticipated sophomore album, Born Sinner, the other day. The video for "Power Trip" features an interesting concept, much darker than what fans may have expected-- in the end, Cole kills off his track collaborator, Miguel, who plays the boyfriend of his love interest.
The rapper decided to explain the concept, and getting Miguel behind it, to MTV News. Cole revealed he had the idea for the video early on in the song's creation. "When I was writing the song, I had the vision for the video, so I knew early on," Cole said. Once Miguel was attached to the song, the Cole World rapper said, "I told them, 'I got the concept for the video, but really it's not a performance video, so I don't even know if Miguel could fit in here 'cause the concept is this,' but then the moment of clarity came."
"This is the only way he could fit in the video. 'Check it out; it sounds crazy, but hear me out. He's gonna be the boyfriend.' [But] because I'm going and killing the boyfriend, they're hearing it and these guys ... were clearly not thrilled about the idea," J. Cole said of how Miguel's team reacted to the idea.
The Roc Nation artist continued to explain how it all came together-- no one from Miguel's team was brave enough to throw out the idea, so eventually J. Cole just called him up himself. He explained, "A week goes by, and I'm like, 'What's up with Miguel? I haven't heard nothing back, we're tryna move on the video, get the location, get the dates,' and everybody's real hesitant, like, 'Oh we haven't gotten a chance to pitch it to him,' and I finally realize what's happening ... nobody has the balls to go to Miguel and tell him."
"I was really hype explaining it to him, and after I tell him the concept I say, 'I want you to be the boyfriend, getting murdered,' and he was just like 'It's crazy you say that because right as you were telling me the story, [I] thought I should be the boyfriend, I should be the one getting killed.' So he was down for it, but it just took me to have that creative conversation with him," Cole explained how the two artists finally got on the same page.
Cole added, "It's art. We're just playing a role, and Miguel is a true artist, so he got it right away. It's not gonna mess up his image; if anything, it makes him look real 'cause he would do that role so willingly."
Check out the video for "Power Trip" below and let us know what you think of the visual.