Soulful crooner Robin Thicke released his new video for “Pretty Lil’ Heart” and unveiled a special guest, rapper Lil’ Wayne. Weezy shows up right off the top in rose colored John Lennon glasses and drops a few verses about romantic love with a fast Rocky name-drop.

The video, directed by Marc Klasfeld, is an homage to the Golden Era of Hollywood. Thicke, in his red leather coat and white tank top, means to evoke the image of James Dean, saying in a behind the scenes interview, “The opening sequence of Rebel Without A Cause, you know that iconic image of James Dean falling on the ground and playing with a little monkey in the road? I think there’s something that I feel sometimes when I want to be noticed and appreciated, yet I still feel so small in this enormous universe. I’m just a monkey playing a cymbal.”

Later in the video Thicke changes to a Marlon Brando persona, dressing in the tank top with suspenders his working-class character in A Streetcar Named Desire wore. Thicke explains, “We wanted it to be very cinematic. You know, I’m a huge movie fan and especially of old movies like Rebel Without A Cause and A Streetcar Named Desire. So I wanted to embody a little of that old cinematic charm, you know the golden age of Hollywood and try to capture a little bit of that and put it into some soul music that worked today in our modern world.” Much like Brando’s character, Thicke finds himself trapped between his love for two ladies in the video and playing out scenes of infidelity.

http://youtu.be/0xwMu2BKYXI