A case of mistaken identity leads to a devastating loss in Burna Boy’s heartbreaking “Real Life” video featuring Stormzy. The upbeat track from Burna’s new album Twice As Tall belies the video’s wrenching storyline as Burna takes the verses, Stormzy sings the chorus, and a new spoken-word interlude implores empathy for the embattled youth of hardscrabble neighborhoods like the one depicted.
“This video represents the struggle of disadvantaged Black youth in the UK,” reads the video’s description. “The blurred lines between the road life and real life. The fragility between life and death; and how knife crime/murder often reported like a mere statistic in the media, has longstanding effects on a community.” This impact is visually represented by young men hanging out on the block who get into an altercation that spirals into a revenge plot that takes the wrong target.
The poem toward the end of the video condemns the apathy of the viewer: “You think we pick and choose who gets to win and lose?” the speaker questions. “You think we don’t sometimes wanna walk in different shoes? You think we don’t want more for these gifted youths?”
Watch Burna Boy’s “Real Life” video featuring Stormzy above.
Twice As Tall is out now on Atlantic Records. Get it here.
Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.