Best Music Videos of the Month

Director: Glassface

Philadelphia's Tunji Ige has seen his stock steadily rise in the last year, and it's easy to hear why. The kid can rap his ass off—but this month we got a look at his skills on video.

The "Dark Liquor" video is a chaotic smash-cut of Tunji's live shows and life on the road, cut with some of the most energetic filters available. Imagine crushed aluminum foil, or lightning strikes up close. These are the kind of videos that could trigger an epileptic fit.

Director: R. Adam Prieto

Toro y Moi is a man of the Earth. He's experimented with vegetarianism, his wife is an environmental engineer—if that doesn't convince you, direct your gaze to the video for “Half Dome.”

The video is a time-lapsed look at Half Dome Mountain, one of the national treasures presiding at Yosemite National Park. The concept came about when bandleader Chaz Bundick met photographer/director Prieto while hiking the mountain, and the resulting vistas are truly a sight to behold.

Director: Sohrab Golsorkhi-Ainslie

"The Nest" pairs Faze Miyake's vivid production with Little Simz' rapid-fire rapping, but the video is another animal entirely. Faces appear in starry, abstract constellations, only to disappear into a night sky in the midst of an intergalactic zoom. Simz appears, fresh as ever, in a white jumpsuit and matching bucket hat. She seems at peace between the stars, letting her raps do the heavy lifting as she bobs in and out of shadow.

"The Nest" is the initial offering from Faze’s self-titled album, due out October 2.

Related: Little Simz: "Women Can Be Kings"

Director: Ryan Hope

Disclosure hasn't exactly been scrimping on their Caracal videos. The totalitarian storyline that started with Sam Smith gets another chapter this week, as their lead heroine Mariella is taken in for some hypnotic interrogation. What her captors don't know, however, is that this Mariella is actually a hologram, or a shape-shifter, or something.

Regardless—the brothers Lawrence have turned in another glossy, high-tempo video to realize their creative vision, and they've pulled it off in style. One more video left in the trilogy.

Directors: Be El Be & Young Thug

Young Thug has a thing for himself? That's the message we're picking up behind the "Best Friend" video—radical self-love. Directed by longtime collaborator Be El Be and Thugger himself, the video features the Atlanta rapper acting as his own chauffeur, fighting with himself over which outfit to wear, and kissing himself. Oh, his head is also the main course at dinner. Thugger cannot be tamed.

Director: Duncan Winecoff

"Friends" opens with an idea. Instead of flying to Chicago for a show, Raury wants to hitchhike there. From Atlanta.

Enter Twitter: the indigo child puts out a call for anyone who can help him out along the way, and soon the rides begin to pour in. The resulting video plays out like a home movie, and the memories look real enough. It's a pitch-perfect concept for a song titled "Friends," and Raury's spirit of camaraderie is infectious.

Director: Allie Avital

Autre Ne Veut puts the talent show competitions on blast in the best way with his video for "Panic Room." None of the track's ornate electronic instrumentation makes it into the video—rather, lead singer Arthur Ashin performs a version a cappella for a panel of unappreciative judges. It's extremely awkward and more than a little beautiful.

Director: Rollo Jackson

There's not much of a concept here. Jamie xx is DJing, Young Thug is wearing a silver jacket and lighting some flowers on fire, there's a plane with a banner, some random girls in a pool, and Popcaan is on a roof. But "Good Times" masterfully captures a mood. It's the little details—the greenery, the pool scene, the plane—that make this video feel larger than life, and it's all really just an excuse to keep this amazing song in heavy rotation.

Director: Joe Weil

Jay Rock's video for "Vice City" features the entire Black Hippy squad, and for those familiar, you'll know that's a reason to celebrate.

Kendrick, Schoolboy, and Ab-Soul all take turns on the literal catwalk, approaching the camera as they make their way through the song. Each rapper brings their unique flavor to the fluttering beat, and the empty warehouse setting proves to be an boundless playground for the creative minds at TDE: stripper poles, broken windows, pińatas, and "big booty bitches" all find their way into the swirling gray palette.

Director: Hype Williams

The Neighbourhood came back with a gloomy vengeance in their latest video. The band needed a director who could match the song's weight, and they did: "R.I.P. 2 My Youth" is directed by Hype Williams, and the video legend's stark style fits perfectly with the band's black and white aesthetic.

Lead singer Jesse Rutherford is quite literally underground—singing from a coffin, roaming the sewers, and trapped at the bottom of a well. The severity of his plight is made clear by sharp edges of light and contrast of the shadows. When it comes to style, The Neighbourhood need no help, but having Hype Williams involved certainly doesn't hurt.