May 11, 2015
Kendrick Lamar will star in Reading native and music megastar Taylor Swift's next music video, according to Swift's Twitter account.
Swift tweeted a picture Monday morning of Lamar as "Welvin Da Great," a character in her upcoming music video for the song "Bad Blood."
Meet Welvin Da Great. @kendricklamar #BadBloodMusicVideo pic.twitter.com/iz6iG87NLE
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) May 11, 2015
The video is set to premiere at the beginning of the 2015 Billboard Music Awards. The video will also feature Girls star and creator Lena Dunham and actress Hailee Steinfield, according to Swift's Twitter page.
Swift's collaboration with Lamar follows over a year of compliments and mutual respect expressed by each artist for the other.
Not only did Swift post a video to her Instagram of her lipsyncing Lamar's "Backseat Freestyle," a song she said would be her theme song, but also expressed excitement over the release of his recent album "To Pimp a Butterfly."
KENDRICK PUT HIS ALBUM OUT EARLY. NO ONE TOUCH ME. @kendricklamar
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) March 16, 2015
Lamar has since called Swift's appreciation for his music a "beautiful thing," and even rapped over Swift's hit song "Shake It Off."
A preview for Swift's new video was released on Friday.
