Video Blast from the Past: The Roots Blow the Hip-Hop Video Cliché Apart

Oh, man. I caught this one measly time on MTV, waaaaaaaay back in the day (like, when Illadelph Halflife came out, back in ’96), and it made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt.

Flash-forward to the age of anything-in-the-damn-world-is-online, and here it is on YouTube, The Roots‘ video for “What They Do,” which happens to be the best damn hip-hop video in history, primarily because it rips the face off all the crappy lookalike videos out there before & since and isn’t afraid to poke fun at hip-hop as a genre. It’s beautiful. “Wow, lightning.”