My final video is the most ambitious of the bunch.
San Francisco rapper Watsky’s song ‘Exquisite Corpse’ is inspired by the word game of the same name, in which multiple writers add new verses to a poem in succession. Watsky recruited seven rappers to add verses to a story he kicks off with a reference to a post-apocalyptic hellscape (that thankfully still has a Sbarro).
Today’s video is the ultimate example of a director turning lemons into lemonade.
Director Ryan Staake actually shares those duties with Young Thug himself, but as you’ll see when you watch the video, he was pretty much on his own. I won’t give away more than that, because this is best seen without much context.
The video has over 30 million views on YouTube and earned Young Thug a Best Editing trophy at MTV’s Video Music Awards.
This song (and its video) is one of my favorite discoveries of 2017, and I didn’t even know it existed until two days before the New Year.
Francis and the Lights is a one-man pop act who hails from Oakland and has released two albums and a handful of EPs over the last decade. He is best known for collaborations with Kanye West (on the song ‘Friends’) and today’s track, which was remixed with an added verse by Chance the Rapper.
Khalid’s debut album American Teen was one of 2017’s musical highlights, and its laid-back appeal is perfectly summed up in the video for second single ‘Young Dumb & Broke.’
The clip features the carefree last day of high school (a time from which the 19-year-old Khalid is not far removed), following a wonderfully diverse group of students as they hang out and enjoy the fleeting moments between childhood and adulthood.
Jay-Z’s ‘Moonlight’ is one of the most provocative and entertaining videos of 2017, and it barely even features the song.
The short film imagines an all-black reimagining of Friends starring some of the hottest talents working today: Jerrod Carmichael (of the regrettably cancelled Carmichael Show, Lil Rey (so great in Get Out), Lakeith Stanfield (Atlanta‘s scene-stealer, also in Get Out, Issa Rae (Insecure), Tessa Thompson (Thor: Ragnarok, my personal fantasies), and Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip, living legend).
Hannibal Buress shows up as well to do some scene-stealing of his own.
