There’s always been a little bit of cheese in Thundercat’s music, from the garish gold of his first album cover to the affinity for ‘80s fusion records that courses through his music’s DNA, but it’s never been as pronounced as it is on Drunk. His third album, released earlier this year, is an opus of technicality and Frank Zappa-level weirdo excursions— take the song about “beating your meat” or the one about eating fish in Tokyo. On it, Thundercat’s absolutely unafraid of letting his cheese flag fly, and nowhere is that more pronounced than on “Let Me Show You the Way.”
Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald, two oft-ridiculed guys long past their primes, are very few people’s idea of go-to collaborators anymore, but as he’s proven time and time again, Thundercat’s not your average dude. He perfectly incorporates them into this glossy track, even introducing them like a DJ on one of the many smooth FM stations that Loggins and McDonald’s music no doubt graces these days. Today, the Drunk highlight has gotten a video.
The clip is a continuation of the video for “Them Changes,” which dropped back in 2015. In that one, we followed a samurai who had both arms cut off at the elbow during a duel, leaving him crippled and forced to live with his mother, complacently sitting on the couch and watching Thundercat speak to him from the TV screen. This time, he’s sent to a rehabilitation center (which is filled with TVs that show Thundercat, Loggins, and McDonald jamming together), and seems to regain some joy in his life by the end of the video. In a press release, directors Katarzyna Sawicka and Carlos Lopez Estrada note that:
“We got the track from Thundercat and quickly realized that we had a unique opportunity to continue the story that we had started with ‘Them Changes.’ We ended that video on a fairly grim note but ‘Show You The Way’ offered a bright and contrasting soundtrack for a sequel of redemption.”
If you haven’t already heard Drunk, you’re missing out. Listen to it here.
