FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

Watch the Actually Briefly Pretty Powerful Video for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s “Drug Dealer”

It comes two weeks after the track about opioid addiction first dropped.

In his new video for "Drug Dealer," directed by Jason Koenig, Macklemore sweats, itches, vomits, and breaks up while the camera in front of him shakes. It's a disturbing and impressively heartbreaking dive into the world of an opioid addict. It's uncomfortable.

The track, released two months back after Macklemore met president President Obama​ to talk about America's opioid epidemic, is, as ever, full of the best of intentions; it's also deeply, almost jarringly, personal. If the guy's earnestness is what upsets you, neither "Drug Dealer" nor its accompanying video—replete with the first sunny steps to recovery at the end—are going to turn you around. And goddamnit all, the closing moments—it's the Serenity Prayer they use in Narcotics/Alcoholics Anonymous, I don't mind ruining that bit for you—is too close to a government-sponsored commercial to actually hit home. It's heavy-handed.

But for a moment, when Macklemore is sitting up in bed, sweating buckets, quite literally spilling his guts, this is actually, briefly, pretty powerful.

Watch it below.

​Follow Noisey on Twiiter​.​