A$AP Rocky has a new dark, trippy world to introduce. On Monday, the rap star unleashed a chaotic visual for his new single “Punk Rocky,” featuring appearances from Winona Ryder, Thundercat, and Danny Elfman.
The video opens with Ryder lounging on a plastic lounge chair, unfazed, while her muscular partner paces nearby, yelling into his phone. From there, Rocky emerges from a garage with rollers in his hair, jumping into a mosh pit and taking a hit to the face. Police soon arrive, rounding up Rocky and his friends and pushing them into a squad car, as the camera focuses on his bruised, speaking eye.
“I wanna fall in love, don’t want no broken heart/Don’t wanna grow apart,” Rocky repeats in the catchy chorus, his eyelids moving like a mouth.
In another scene, Ryder eventually walks over and offers Rocky a plate of cookies. After her partner sees Ryder hanging with Rocky, he loses it. Rocky and his crew are swiftly carried away to a police station, where they have their mugshots taken and the artist raps from behind bars, throwing money at an elderly lawyer.
The video ends with Rocky running through the streets and firing a gun into the air, before he’s shown once again in the back of a cop car and wildly catapulting through the back window.
“You’re punch drunk in love, left me with a blackened eye/She don’t like those rapper guys, take me back,” Rocky raps in the outro. “This punch drunk in love (Love), left me with a blackened eye/Right now, I’d like to apologize, take me back.”
The video has Tim Burton written all over it with appearances from Elfman and Ryder — who both worked on Burton’s Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands — and its fantastical imagery. The video offers a look into his upcoming album, Don’t Be Dumb, which drops Jan. 16. Burton designed parts of the LP’s artwork and a subsequent film that’s set to accompany the record. He also told Vanity Fair that Elfman “scored a bunch of the songs” on the album as well.
According to a press release, the cover art “features six of Rocky’s signature personas, brought to life in Burton’s unmistakable style. Each character offers a window into unforgettable moments across the course of Rocky’s illustrious career.”
