Kendrick Lamar’s video for his latest single, “The Heart Part 5,” is a stunning feat of deep fake technology, where the rapper’s face morphs seamlessly into those of Kobe Bryant, O.J. Simpson, Jussie Smollett, Kanye West, Nipsey Hussle and Will Smith. It’s certainly not without precedent: Created by Lamar and collaborator Dave Free with their pgLang studio, the deep fake technology is the work of “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Deep Voodoo studios — which used it for their eye-popping 2020 “Sassy Justice” video — and similar tactics were used for Michael Jackson’s 1991 video for “Black or White” and, going back even further, in 1985 for recording artists/ pioneering directors Kevin Godley and Lol Creme for their song “Cry.”
As with “The Heart Part 5,” the video for “Cry” consists entirely of faces blending seamlessly from one to another, and although the technology was radically
