Continuing our ongoing Best of the 2000s series, this week we counted down the Top 100 Internet Videos of the decade. With the overabundance of viral goodness, we didn’t have enough room to highlight all the amazing internet-based music videos that have dropped over the course of the Aughts. Don’t worry, we didn’t forget!
In the first half of the decade, D.I.Y., low budget videos had a home on SMACK DVDs, BET Uncut and local video shows like Video Music Box. But after the rise of YouTube in 2005, and the cancellation of BET Uncut in 2006, the hip-hop world finally warmed up to the idea of releasing music videos exclusively for the internet, brimming with not-safe-for-TV content. Watch Complex’s picks for the 10 best below…
Remember the summer of 2007’s #2 pop smash “Party Like A Rockstar” by Atlanta rap group Shop Boyz? The new single by hip-hop’s underdog supergroup Slaughterhouse—comprised of major label refugees Joe Budden, Royce Da 5′9″, Crooked I, and Joell Ortiz—is nothing at all like that. Nah. This shit is lyrical, B! Fuck a ringtone!
Sidenote: someone needs to tell Royce that listening to Nickelback isn’t ironic…it’s just t-t-totally lame!
The funny thing about the concept of “artistic integrity” is that it means something different to everyone. For some rappers, it means making the same keep-it-real punchline records with no aims at mass appeal. For others, it simply means making the music that appeals to you, even if your sound changes over time.
Judging from the new video for “Artistic Integrity,” DC rapper Wale defines the concept as simply staying in control of your own destiny. In the metaphorical Rik Cordero-directed clip'the first from The Mixtape About Nothing'Wale controls his own movements via a video game controller, only to have himself hyjacked by The Wire’s Gbenga Akinnagbe. Watch the video below.
