And I said, ‘Oi, you over there! Can you do me a favor, will you do a bit of dancing for us?’…And that’s how sort of innocent it all was.” –R.S. He was just hanging out that day to watch, but Goldman noticed he was “jumpy and perky and lively. There’s a scene-stealing dance cameo from a then-unknown Flavor Flav-his first time on camera. The director was Vivien Goldman, the London punk professor who’s chronicled reggae, Afrobeat, rock, and rap. It made all previous rap videos look like Toys R Us. No cornball comedy, no posing: Eric rocks the turntables while Rak holds the microphone like a grudge, next to a graffiti mural, a playground, a Harlem storefront on 125th Street. “I Ain’t No Joke” wasn’t set in a club or on a soundstage-it was right there on the street, in the same park where they hung out. and Rakim did in the Eighties, their first video set a new standard for hip-hop cool and street realness. It’s a celebration of hip-hop’s incredible history of making a big impact on small screens. Our list of the 150 greatest hip-hop videos was compiled by the editors of Rolling Stone and a panel of music critics. However, the democratic nature of the internet meant that anyone with access to a camera could find a way to ensnare millions and millions of eyeballs, whether that means the shock of Odd Future, the hyper-local intimacy of Chief Keef and Bobby Shmurda, the arthouse fury of Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino, or the deeply charismatic presence of Ice Spice and GloRilla. Artists like Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliott, Lil Kim, and Puff Daddy were almost inseparable from their larger-than-life video personae.Īs the video age gave way to the YouTube era, blockbuster stars like Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Drake did their best to keep grand (and expensive) artistic statements alive in a period where budgets were shrinking exponentially. Gary Gray, and Brett Ratner caught early breaks from rap videos. Directors like the Hughes Brothers, Michel Gondry, Antoine Fuqua, F. BET’s Rap City took the message to other parts of our cable network.īy the Nineties, hip-hop was America’s pop music, and filmmakers like Hype Williams, Paul Hunter, Spike Jonze, Sanji, and Diane Martel began tweaking and rethinking the visual language of the genre, bending it prismatically toward their visions. The pay-to-play jukebox channel the Box would show the videos they wouldn’t touch. A pilot for a show called Yo! MTV Raps would do bonkers ratings numbers for the channel in 1988, and soon suburban living rooms across America could be bum-rushed by the righteous anger of Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions, and Ice Cube. Soon the undeniable force of artists like Run-D.M.C., the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince would knock down the segregated walls of MTV airplay. The rap clips of the early Eighties, like those of Roxanne Shanté, were triumphs of creating a big impression with practically zero budget, mostly shown on Ralph McDaniels’ pioneering New York public television show, Video Music Box. Kids from every corner of the globe could learn to scratch or do the Humpty Dance. Dre’s Compton, Juvenile’s New Orleans, Mike Jones’ Houston, and Chief Keef’s Chicago. The world could now visit Grandmaster Flash’s New York, Dr. Then and now, rap videos serve as ambassadors to sound, fashion, art, and emotion, transforming localized subcultures into vital elements of Planet Rock. To celebrate the music’s 50th anniversary, “Rolling Stone” will be publishing a series of features, historical pieces, op-eds, and lists throughout this year.įrom the moment Run-D.M.C., clad in all-black leather and fedoras, emerged from the Cadillac in the “Rock Box” clip, the music video was turning hip-hop artists into icons. HIP-HOP WAS BORN in the Bronx in the summer of 1973.
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