The music video, for all intents and purposes, is a fond memory and a meaningless medium. Somehow, labels still shell out thousands for these promotional tools that are now mainly consumed via buffering YouTube streams. Once they realize it's more cost effective to just hand 50 Cent a flip cam, they'll finally stop footing the bill for all them hoes.
Until that day, we're happy to kickstart our roundup of 2009's best hip-hop output with rap videos. Those we loved enough to stand the buffering, that mattered, that impacted culture, that still tried.
Number one shouldn't be a surprise.
20. Rhymefest - "Chicago"
Rhymefest's jarring, homophobic screed turned heads with its comic book collage of all the grimey parts of Chicago you avoided while in town for Lollapalooza.
Rhymefest's jarring, homophobic screed turned heads with its comic book collage of all the grimey parts of Chicago you avoided while in town for Lollapalooza.
19. P.O.S - "Optimist"
The cult punk-rock rapper buys into hope theory.
18. Slim Thug - "Still a Boss"
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Slim Thug's Music Video - Still a Boss | ||||
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Leave it to The Daily Show's "senior black correspondent" Wyatt Cynac to get Houston's own Slim Thug in on a hilarious parody of the rapper's life - post-recession.
17. The Lonely Island - "I'm On a Boat"
Another journey into the grime of an urban nightmare from one of the North East's best voices.
It's Monday morning and someone forwarded Saturday Night Live's most recent digital short to your Outlook Inbox. I know, tiring. But Andy Samberg brought five years-worth of shorts to their pop culture high with his funny fake rap album, the pinnacle of which was getting T-Pain out to open water.
16. Beanie Sigel - "In The Ghetto"
Another journey into the grime of an urban nightmare from one of the North East's best voices.
15. Southbound - "That Ain't Right"
The local Austinites self-produced these tremendous visuals for an excellent song.
14. Jay-Z - "Empire State of Mind"
The video is exactly what we all pictured when we first ZShared Blueprint 3 and heard this exuberant anthem for the ages: elegant black and white shots of the City skyline, Times Square, Alicia Keys with a piano, Brooklyn, maybe a little fond reminiscing from the corner office.
13. The Roots - "How I Got Over"
Nice.
12. The Cool Kids - "Pennies"
The Kids let another year pass without a proper major album, we're still buying-in due to fun mixtapes, fresh jams and this slick nod to suburbia.
11. Kanye West - "Paranoid"
The best song from 808s also gets its best video. We can't tell which is more more stunning: Rihanna or the surrealist, Twilight Zone-inspired, black-and-white cinematography from frequent Kanye-collaborator Nabil. Probably Rihanna.
10. Kid Cudi - "Pursuit of Happiness"
We'll be honest: The album was weak. But we love that Cudi has taken up the mantle for pushing the video vanguard. Ambition pays off in this day-dreaming-at-the-party take on the stand-out MGMT collaboration.
9. T.I. featuring Rihanna - "Live Your Life"
Did you know this won best male video during last September's VMAs? Of course not, but how funny was "The Hangover." The first time, I mean.
8. K-Os - "4,3,2,1"
8. K-Os - "4,3,2,1"
The Canuck emcee goes apeshit in a supermarket and invokes Spike Jonze's work in the '90s with The Pharcyde.
7. Drake - "Successful"
Video Fan #1: "Wait, where are the video vixens?"
Video Fan #2: "Exactly, that's the point."
6. Major Lazer - "Hold The Line"
An animated triumph that harkens back to the golden age of MTV's "Liquid Television."
5. Kid Cudi - "Day N Nite"
Cudder strikes again with an eye-popping, dope-ass So-Me directed vid for his biggest single. True story: ended up at a free Sugar Ray concert back in October and they played an awful cover of this. Ladies and gentlemen, my worst hip-hop memory of 2009.
4. Clipse - "Popular Demand"
Cocaine populists post up in Harlem, hang out with Cam'Ron outside a joint called "Obama's Fried Chicken" and assemble an army of locals in puffy coats. Throwback '90s grit served right.
3. Mayer Hawthorne - "Just Ain't Gonna Work Out"
Hawthorne formulated the treatment and it was a great one: a happy-go-lucky gentleman in a black-and-white '50s town walking around and handing out his heart (appropriately made of pink vinyl) to willing particpants of the fairer sex. Then AIDS hits and everything goes horribly wrong. (We made up that last part).
2. Kanye West - "We Were Once A Fairy Tale"
With Spike Jonez (gotta be one of the top five music video directors ever), this decade's master of pop crafts an incredible, resonating, bleak precursor to his subsequent cultural collapse. Kanye West: party-crasher/life of the party.
1. Beyonce - "Single Ladies"
One of the best videos of all-time.
Or at least the biggest video of the year. The unsinkable Beyonce Knowles cranked out a seemingly endless stream of videos in '09, due largely to the success of her most iconic one, which was technically released at the end of '08. But it wasn't until this year that "Single Ladies" inspired cultural touchstones including but not limited to: SNL parodies, preternatural babies, defining moments in big mainstream media staples like "Glee," a spot in the new Alvin and the Chipmunks trailer as no-brainer mass-market bait, and the soundtrack of probably every wedding, including Ramon's.
1. Beyonce - "Single Ladies"
One of the best videos of all-time.
Or at least the biggest video of the year. The unsinkable Beyonce Knowles cranked out a seemingly endless stream of videos in '09, due largely to the success of her most iconic one, which was technically released at the end of '08. But it wasn't until this year that "Single Ladies" inspired cultural touchstones including but not limited to: SNL parodies, preternatural babies, defining moments in big mainstream media staples like "Glee," a spot in the new Alvin and the Chipmunks trailer as no-brainer mass-market bait, and the soundtrack of probably every wedding, including Ramon's.
Don't stop, B.
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