Prince’s previously unreleased track “Mary Don’t You Weep” plays during the end credits of Spike Lee’s latest film, BlacKkKlansman. On Wednesday, the prolific director released a music video for the song, which features scenes and stills from the movie.
The four-minute, 20-second clip shows real-life hero Ron Stallworth (played by John David Washington) fighting for civil rights in the late ’70s, as he skillfully infiltrates a Colorado chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and exposes their plan to attack people of color. The video also features Topher Grace’s portrayal of former KKK grand wizard David Duke.
“Mary Don’t You Weep” ends with a photo of Lee and Prince sitting courtside at a basketball game in New York in 1998. This is the second Prince music video that Lee has directed. Back in 1992, he directed the late musician’s “Money Don’t Matter 2 Night.”
Related Stories
“Mary Don’t You Weep” was announced as part of the track list for Prince’s upcoming posthumous album, Piano & A Microphone 1983. While a release date for the album has yet to be revealed, “Mary Don’t You Weep” is currently available on streaming services.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Lee said that it was kismet for him to have the Prince track for BlacKkKlansman.
“I knew that I needed an end-credits song. I’ve become very close with [Prince estate advisor] Troy Carter, one of the executives at Spotify,” he said. “So I invited Troy to a private screening. And he said, ‘Spike, I got the song.’ And that was ‘Mary Don’t You Weep,’ which had been recorded on a cassette in the mid-’80s.”
Added Lee: “Prince wanted me to have that song. I don’t care what nobody says. My brother Prince wanted me to have that song. For this film. There’s no other explanation to me. This cassette is in the back of the vaults. In Paisley Park. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it’s discovered? Nah-uh. That ain’t accident.”
Watch the video for “Mary Don’t You Weep” below.
