Kendrick Lamar Almost Used Eminem Deepfake For 'The Heart Part 5' Video

Kendrick Lamar's powerful visuals for "The Heart Part 5" could've been a lot different if he had morphed into Eminem.

On Tuesday, December 27, New York Times Magazine debuted its thorough profile on the founders of pgLang K. Dot and Dave Free. Deep within the cover story, writer Mitchell S. Jackson explained the roots of Lamar's Grammy-nominated video, which shows the rapper transforming into various notable figures in Hip-Hop and pop culture. The technology used in the video was created by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. They revealed Lamar considered embodying Eminem as well, but ultimately he decided not to.

“You see Kendrick turned into Tupac, Kendrick turned into Kanye, and I think we had Eminem,” Stone said. He didn't explain why Em didn't make it to the final version.

Stone and Parker, who are working with pgLang on a live-action comedy, also explained that Lamar and Free were one of the first to use the deepfake technology from a company Parker owns. In the video, Lamar raps over a sample of Marvin Gaye's "I Want You" as his face shifts into deepfakes of both deceased and living anomalies like O.J. Simpson, Kanye West, Jussie Smollett, Will Smith, Kobe Bryant and Nipsey Hussle. Since its release, the video has earned numerous nominations for awards including five Grammy nods.

Elsewhere in the cover story, Kendrick Lamar reinforced his thoughts about using social media and discussed how he felt about making Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. He told the outlet, who considers him "the greatest rapper of his generation," that he's never expressed himself the way he did on his new LP.

“I’ve never expressed myself the way I expressed myself on this album,” Kendrick said. “From the moment I started picking up a pen and started freestyling. This was the moment that I was trying to get to without even knowing at the time.”

Read the entire cover story now before it hits newsstands on January 1, 2023