Home » Music » Hip-Hop Music & Culture » Top Ten Rap Videos

Top Ten Rap Videos

© Steve Juon

1. Live Squad - "Heartless". If you had to encapsulate the rise and fall of a young man with a good heart and good grades into a cold-blooded killer due to tragedy in his life, you couldn't possibly do it better than this song does. It's a short, action packed, POWERFUL movie. 2. Black Sheep - "The Choice is Yours". Not only does this song have one of the illest beats ever, not only do the special effects of the video screen being crumpled up STILL blow my mind, but I *love* how Dres practically LIFTS the whole crowd with "pick it up, pick it up, PICK IT UP!!" just by the motion of his body in the video. DOPE. :) 3. Public Enemy - "Can't Truss It". The only music video that offended my father. To this day, I've never quite figured out why. I think maybe he founding the lynching at the end disturbing - I don't know. But the conceptualization of anciety day slavery being equal to modern day slave-wage employment is powerful, shocking, and hard to forget. 4. GangStarr - "Take It Personal". Something about the jury nodding their heads to the beat and watching Guru defend himself in court against catching a charge is just much too much flavor for one man to take. I remember seeing this video on MTV and going out to buy _Daily Operation_ the *next* day. That's a purchase never regretted. Back in the day when a dope video COULD mean a dope album. 5. Organized Konfusion - "Who Stole My Last Piece of Chicken?". Maybe I remember it so fondly because I only saw it one time, on Dee Barnes' "Pump It Up", but I can't help but think this was one of the most slamming videos I've ever seen. 6. Ice Cube - "Today Was a Good Day". I'm sure people will ask me why I didn't pick "Dead Homiez" or "Straight Outta Compton" instead, but to me this video was _Friday_ more than _Friday_ was. Just a whole day of Cube rolling, enjoying life, doing all the things we all wanna do when we have a good day. It's some kick back, cooled out shit. 7. EPMD - "You Gots to Chill". Come on, they're in a fucking FRIDGE. They're actually CHILLING with the ice cubes. It's so cornball it's actually DOPE AS FUCK. It makes you wanna crack up laughing. I miss seeing videos that are this raw, straight up, and honest. It's all too Hype Williams these days.

The copyright of the article Top Ten Rap Videos in Hip-Hop Music & Culture is owned by Steve Juon. Permission to republish Top Ten Rap Videos in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.