Yelawolf & Travis Barker Deliver an Unflinching Look at the Good & Bad of American Life (Video)

After debuting the audio for their latest collaboration on Sway in the Morning last week, Yelawolf and Travis Barker have re-emerged with a phantasmagorical video for “Out of Control.” The Alabama MC has never shied away from the controversial and Barker’s career trajectory as the drummer for Blink 182 and then a collaborator of Hip-Hop artists like Busta Rhymes, Game, Raekwon, Slaughterhouse and others makes him a fitting complement to Yelawolf’s aesthetic. Nimbly merging the worlds of Rock and Rap, “Out of Control” may prove to be an acquired taste for some, but it is undoubtedly serving up some serious bars matched by Barker’s unrelenting backdrop.

Its Jason Goldwater-directed visual component is no less skillfully blended, as rapidly firing scenes and stills sync up with Yela’s lyrical content – but not so perfectly that viewers are left with no room for their imaginations. Apes, wolves, and barely dressed women share equal screen time with more cerebral images depicting death, war, and the macabre. Symbols of American patriotism and an obsession with money are spliced in with beer drinkin’ White Americans and bird-flipping Black Americans (namely, Tupac) in what seems to be a reflection on the vices we all share in common but that we somehow blindly assign to different races. All in all, it’s a visual essay on Americana, with all of its glory and excess and so perhaps the duo is right – maybe we are all a little out of control.

Related: Yelawolf Revs Up His Flow & Angst Over Travis Barker Drums (Audio)