RMR and Westside Gunn hustle their way out of the projects in the motivational video for RMR’s “Welfare.” The song is taken from the masked rapper/singer’s June EP, Drug Dealing Is A Lost Art, and finds the pair ruminating on the things they had to do to make it out of poverty — namely, well, dealing drugs.
The video opens with shots of a housing projects somewhere in the US, featuring children playing, laundry drying on the metal clotheslines that stand in for mechanical dryers in the projects, and a cloud of smoke leaving an older man’s gold-toothed mouth. The shots set the scene; while humanizing the people who come from such conditions, it ensures viewers know what the conditions are.
Then, Gunn appears, sitting atop a mountainous stack of cash. The video then intercuts shots of RMR and Gunn performing their verses while motorbikes circle them with ones of RMR mugging the camera while flanked by his similarly-masked goons. The contrast between the earlier scenes paints the rags-to-riches tale from both ends, leaving the viewer to fill in the middle part (i.e.: drug dealing).
RMR’s breakout began earlier this year with the release of his “Rascal” video, which went massively viral, paving the way for “Dealer,” “I’m Not Over You,” a “Racal” remix featuring Young Thug, and of course, Drug Dealing Is A Lost Art.
Watch RMR’s “Welfare” video featuring Westside Gunn above.
RMR is a Warner Records artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.