Lockdown speaks to the mental state of what so many people are going through with the social unrest in America. It captures the side of freedom fighting we don’t always see, the come down from the high of a protest, the unspoken bonds we share with those who fight with us, the inner turmoil of bouncing from a street march to your kids at home, and having to figure out what to tell them. It embodies the spirit of so many who struggle today and always, having to reconcile with the world around them while still living a normal life.

The brief/objective for lockdown was to hit a personal note within all thats going on right now. It was to focus on the minutia of what real people on real streets right now are going through. Anderson wanted to embody his emotional process from protest to the end of the night, and really wanted to capture the struggle with sharing these moments with not just your peers, but your own children.

The video aims to capture the decompression after a protest. The sullen, happy, confused, exhilarated, angry, hurtful, defeated, inspired person that is contending with what is happening.

The strategy with Lockdown was to use real people in Anderson’s life, his real friends, his real child, to pack a harder punch at how today’s issues are affecting real people. It was to go for raw, underproduced aesthetics that made you feel like Anderson could be anyone, another protestor capturing the feelings of what so many protestors feel right now.

Lockdown was written and shot in about one week total, and shot with a very small crew in one day. The timing was necessary to grab hold of the social movement of the times, therefore releasing it at the height of these protests was crucial.

Lockdown was released on Juneteenth, garnering much attention due to the nature of the holiday and the themes of black struggles portrayed in the video. It was received as a moving piece that summed up the side of protesting that goes unnoticed, and shed light on the introspective side of taking to the streets. With engagement not only from Anderson’s fans, but large portions of the hip hop industry, Lockdown hit at a feeling of struggle that seems universal.