A hip hop classic with a Jamaican hook just found a new home on Netflix. A reworked version of Kendrick Lamar’s ‘The Blacker the Berry’, featuring dancehall deejay Assassin, plays during a train gunfight in the anime series ‘Bass X Machina’.

In the scene, Brian Tyree Henry, who voices Bass Reeves, faces a carriage full of gunmen and says: “Anybody wanna reconsider? You got until I finish reloading this gun.” Then the beat drops. It’s a remix built to fit the show’s sound design, not the album version. Netflix has shared the moment on its AfricaOnNetflix YouTube channel:

Assassin on the hook

Assassin, born Jeffrey Campbell and also known as Agent Sasco, delivers the hook on the song. ‘The Blacker the Berry’ came out as a single in February 2015, ahead of To Pimp a Butterfly, and Kendrick performed it in a medley with ‘Alright’ at the 2016 Grammys. Assassin had also worked with Kanye West before that, appearing on ‘I’m In It’ from Yeezus (2013).

HotNewHipHop editor in chief Alexander Cole called the placement “a dope move”, and we agree. More than ten years on, the song is reaching a whole new audience, and a dancehall voice is right there in the middle of it.

Source: DancehallMag (also HotNewHipHop)