John Legend has today unveiled the official video for his new single “Penthouse Floor”, featuring Chance The Rapper.
The video sees John play a hotel’s ’employee of the month’ who, working a shift during a Black Lives Matter protest, attempts to create unity in a divided United States.
“Penthouse Floor” will serve as the third single from John’s 2016 Darkness and Light album and succeeds “Love Me Now” – which has been streamed over 200,000,000 times – and “Surefire”, which won an MTV VMA this summer.
Speaking of the video to Complex, who premiered the visual earlier today, John says:
“With the chorus of going to the penthouse floor, we were thinking about upward mobility, and thinking about escape. The more I sat with the song as I was making the record, I wanted to have more attention in the song where I was thinking about not just upward mobility and escaping, but also thinking about what it means to come from humble beginnings like I come from, a blue collar family, where people that are often ignored and forgotten about, and to elevate to more rarified air like I am now but to not forget about where you come from. And to use your power and status to uplift people and shine a light on places where we come from. That is what the song lyrically evolved to and that is what the video represents.”
John Legend is currently performing on the European leg of his Darkness and Light World Tour.
