Kendrick Lamar’s Persona Bot is a Messenger Story with a Soundtrack
Kendrick Lamar recently released his new album “DAMN” in all stores and music streaming services.
The release of this album got me thinking about how a music artist can release an album on Messenger in a unique way.
The answer: Storytelling.
I created a form of storytelling through group chats with music clips that correlate with the context of the conversation.
I’ve seen bots with a group chat type of experience but I wanted to see if I can create an experience to work with music artists.
The bot starts off in a group chat with you and two of your inner city friends, Curtis and Rey.
Curtis begins the conversation by talking about a recent incident he had with the cops.
The story goes on until the group chat is paused to play a music clip that relates to the story.
That music clip is from the song “XXX” by Kendrick Lamar featuring: U2 from his album “DAMN”.
I envisioned this experience much like watching a scene from a movie and hearing a song in the background.
The group chat doesn’t continue unless you finish the lyrics the music clip. This ensures the user hears the entire music clip, and more importantly for the artist, listened to the lyrics closely.
If the user gets the lyrics right, the group chat continues and carries on to another story which will eventually lead to another music clip.
These storytelling experiences in the form of group chats can be built for each song on the album.
Beyond music, I believe storytelling in the form of group chats on Messenger with audio clips from a podcast, voice memos or even just sound effects can add context to stories in a way that was never done before.
