June 2014

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Puff Daddy f/ Meek Mill "I Want The Love" (Eif Rivera, dir.)

Hip Hop as nothing more than a Game Of Thrones? Welcome to The North, where the artist formally known as Puff Daddy and then Diddy and now Puff Daddy again stakes out his throne with the help of Meek Mill.

PS:  Between Diddy rewinding his name back to Puff Daddy, and this video's obvious callback to the "Hypnotize" video intro, I think we can safely say that the Bad Boy swagger is mounting a comeback. 

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Nicki Minaj f/ The Game "Pills N Potions" (Diane Martel, Geoffrey Lillemon, dir.)

Silly Rabbit, don't you know tricks aren't just for Miley Cyrus? Nicki Minaj has been pushing out transgressive videos since jump, but "Pills N Potions" carves out territory that seems custom-made for Tumblr (or sad MDMA trip). There's out-there animation, some revenge at her lover — gamely played by The Game (no pun intended) — and tears that fall like metallic sheets of rain, all in a 4x3 set-up to accentuate the occasional lo-fi, but always hi-impact visuals.

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PSY f/ Snoop Dogg "Hangover"

"Party's Over, it ain't over Try to make a bad memory, over and over... Care to find a single piece of me, game over"

So it goes for PSY who's awoken from unprecedented success — 2 Billion YouTube viewers can't be wrong — in search of what comes next. Hence, we get PSY as ringmaster: He's strangely minimized in the still over-the-top "Hangover," sharing screentime and a bulk of the vocals with an always game Snoop Dog. That's not to say we don't get to see PSY being PSY and that this video isn't filled with memorable moments — many of which seem to be pre-looped for easy GIFability — but "Hangover" seems to have stripped-out the unique and inspired lunacy of "Gangnam Style" for something more modular and replaceable. And the fact the video ends with a teaser for his NEXT single/video coming this Summer doesn't really radiate confidence, does it?

PS: The video is already over 5 million views in just a few hours and seems destined to break more records. In other words: A hangover is just a few drinks away from being drunk again. Cheers.

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