Evan Dale // Dec 28, 2020
Through all of the new and incredibly wide-ranging music that 2021 brought to all of our ears, so too did the year bring into focus, and even reinvent, new possibilities for visual representation of music and meaning. These are the five videos that captured our imaginations and set a precedent for how music videos at all scales should be approached with creative respect.
Topaz Jones + Rubberband | Don't Go Tellin' Your Momma
It is almost unfair to include this video – rather this short film – in this list. And yet, to omit it would be a snub towards what this short film – an elongated music video at its most inner id – means to the future of musical and cinematographic intersections. With modern music, as artists are constantly transcending the very idea of genre towards a sound and auditory aesthetic that most adheres to their own identity, it’s only natural, too, that artists transcend music and film altogether. From Topaz Jones and directing duo, Rubberband, Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma – which also exists sans the visuals as a near-equally immersive and important album – dunks its viewer into a modern reinvention of the Black ABC’s to the tune of transcendent hip-hop, soul, and funk.
See why Don't Go Tellin' Your Momma is the Best Video of 2021:
$avvy | Cannot Do
There is perpetually something timeless yet mysterious about the black and white aesthetic’s intersection with hip-hop music. And from Nashville, where a vibrant explosion of rangy hip-hop and R&B talent only represents one side to a larger creative renaissance spanning music, fashion, art, photography, and cinematography, $avvy’s Cannot Do, taken from his 2021 debut collection, Boys Wear Pearls, is a standout reinvention of the whole-block-is-invited squad video. Set in a parking garage and brimming with the council of fellow creatives and friends that the young Nashville star on the rise always keeps in orbit, Cannot Do is nothing if not proof of the clout and hype bound to continue growing in $avvy’s peripheral as more creative explosions – like this one – come into focus.
VanJess | Slow Down ft. Lucky Daye
VanJess – the LA by way of Lagos sisters who are changing any and all preconceptions of how R&B can be made in 2021 – are perpetually a creative reinvention of Golden Era R&B for a new generation. At the beginning of the year, they dropped Homegrown – an EP brimming with homages towards how they are infusing the future with the past. And en route to its Deluxe release later in the year, they blessed the R&B world with a collaboration everyone wanted. Folding Lucky Daye into Slow Down, and pulling the trio into a set design blooming with an old-school Cadillac, bouquets of flowers, and impeccable style, the visuals – like the single itself and the remix – are yet another example of the profoundly timeless impact the VanJess are having in an R&B moment always looking simultaneously forwards and back for inspiration.
JMSN | Love 2 U
With his actress girlfriend, Alexa Demie pulling rank as the video’s director and simultaneously starry choreographer encapsulating viewers from her seat in a giant, neon cocktail coupe, JMSN’s marathonic Love 2 U is an example of the boundlessness in a space that transcends cinema and music videos. In something that feels as though it blurs the intro of a Bond flick into the moment when Blade Runner Ryan Gosling comes face to face with his giant holographic love interest, all to the tune of timeless, sultry Neo-Soul and face-melting guitar solos, Love 2 U is a masterpiece that transcends genre and epoch. And by that measure, it is truly a microcosmic glimpse into the larger web of inadherent music, fashion, and cinematography that has allowed JMSN to become one of the most unique and ubiquitous artists of the past decade.
Patrick Paige II | Whisper (Want My Luv) ft. Steve Lacy + Durand Bernarr
Pure funk and soul. And with a cast of purely charismatic characters at his side including Steve Lacy, Durand Bernarr, and Allen Love, Patrick Paige II set the precedent en route to his then forthcoming album, If I Fail am I Still Cool, that the answer to that was already prominent through the Whisper. Whisper (Want My Luv) folds the whimsy of Soul Plane into the high class of 70’s luxury air travel to the tune of downright timeless funk. Sexy outfits, sexier basslines, and the sexiest moments of all from the show-stopping falsetto of Durand Bernarr, the single and video were precursor to the statement that no matter what he does, Patrick Paige II is unendingly cool, and unendingly talented, seamlessly translating it all to the screen.