I've been into hip hop videos for as long as i've been into hip hop and in that time i've seen well over 1,000 videos. Years ago they were exciting to watch accompanied by the latest hip hop track, they were raw innovative and at their best, these days they're just a pile of crap. Even the first ever hip hop video i saw (Run DMC's 'Walk this way') stands head and shoulders above the majority of the videos out there today. MTV helped the growth, nurturing and innovation of these 4 minutefilms then when they got bored they killed the hip hop video. This happened when it introduced new guidelines for what could and couldn't be shown in 1993, before that nearly everything was aired (bar sexscenes, 2 live crew etc). A double standard really as the stuff you wouldn't see in an Ice Cube video could be shown in the latest Guns N Roses 11 minute epic.

They saw the hip hop involvement as a threat, they didn't want to be blamed for any influence they had on the younger generation by showing guns, violence etc, but the youth was still to see this type of thing in the news and films being shown in the daytime. One move they took was to cut YO! MTV Raps to a weekly 2 hour late night slot (When it had previously been on every day for an hour at prime time) and give the excuse that rap and hip hop was more integrated into their playlist these days.

Now in 1998 YO! has no presenters, is one hour long and given a late night slot which is not only inconvenient but shows how MTV pimped the artform for itself and is just keeping it there tidied away in a corner to look like their covering all music types. Have you watched the show lately?, its Master P followed by the latest Bad Boy then the new SoSo Def plus if your lucky they'll throw in their favourite new artist of the year (Read: Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz who they won't care about next year) and any other type of video is very lucky to get only aired once. Thats not what hip hop is about these days (No disrespect to the artists mentioned) but that show is supposed to be dedicated to hip hop, the artists that are not commercial, the ones you can't catch on the MTV playlist in the day.

I saw the DMX vid 'Stop being Greedy' and it was good to see some rawness in the video, i was actually surprised it made it to MTV as there were no bright colours and he wasn't getting jiggy with it in a nice gold suit. The video was exactly what the song was about, fast moving, captivating and actually a bit threatening, something thats been missing for years. Even his last video 'Get at me dog' was showing signs of light with its rawness and simplicity when it was filmed at NY hip hop club 'The Tunnel', it surprised me even more to see that it was directed by king of the gimmick videos, Hype Williams (Once you've seen one Hype video you seen em all, LL, Puffy, Biggie, Mase, Nas you get my point). On the same show i also caught the new 'Joints and jams' from the Black eyed peas, something like this hasn't been seen since the Pharcyde came out with 'Drop' and 'Passin me by', some new ideas without the massive budget, i mean c'mon was Puffys 'Victory' really worth all that money? (N.B. the Black eyed peas joint has them being sucked towards the camera lens while they rap their lines, then at the end they do some crazy retarded dancing over this live piano loop, try and catch it if MTV will play it again).

OK so BET is the same with their vids no violence or guns (Although the police are allowed to be seen brandishing em in vids, maybe a way of warning the viewers of their power) but even they ain't as tight as MTV, sometimes i'll catch a video from RapCity and its almost a completely different vid to the one i caught on YO!, they do less editing, hardly blur anything and they don't take intros out (MTV must see these as an inconvenience). Artists and directors are now intimidated into making videos that they don't want to, just so they know that they'll be guarunteed or most likely to get airplay. For example, a Hype Williams style vid (Bright colours, flashing lights, all over slickness) is more likely to get both daytime airplay and shown on YO! or RapCity than something like the latest video from Company Flow ('End to end burners' another Raw hip hop vid thats getting little airplay but to be honest i think the group would prefer it that way). Then theres the BOX, very little standards are upheld you can catch what you here, 2 problems though, you gotta watch loads of Spice Girls, country and pop vids before anything decent comes on, plus access to this cable station is limited.

The videos don't even display all corners of this artform, the last video that really did that was KRS's 'Step into a world' with deejaying,graffitiing and breaking all included, the last Run DMC vs Jason Nevins or the Rappers Delight remake don't really count. Maybe its because the videos are portraying the artists as something they are not such as Big willies and Dons that they are getting stereotyped, the Roots managed to parody it on 'What they do' but maybe that only got a lot of airplay beacuse it was also radio friendly. This stereotyping leads the video stations to think that once one type of video has been shown you've seen it before which we all have, they are more concerned with the visuals these days than also taking the actual song into consideration as they used to which would probably be cut to bits with all the censoring anyway.

The bottom line is that although MTV have killed the hip hop video( its still better than any other music forms output) the artists, directors and labels themselves have also dealt a hand in its demise. MTV would rather play the more commercial, non threatening vids from Master P, Bad Boy, Will Smith etc than the latest Mobb Deep, CNN or latest Wu-Affiliate. This means its time to flip it again on them, they aren't gonna alter their standards to encorporate 'Real' videos again so the artists need to be more original and come up with new ideas before it gets stagnant. Although i like the DMX video i don't wanna see about 10 similar ones per show, its all about individuality in style and ideas without being crude harsh or violent for the networks to take notice, the hip hop culture has managed to do this in the music itself now we need to take it to the next level and include it in the cinematic tales that accompany the song.

This editorial is dedicated to the memory of Michael Lucero who was sadly killed in May 1998 in a car accident. It will be a sad loss to the hip hop video world as he was an innovator in the way the videos looked and came out, examples of his work included Black Sheeps 'Without a doubt', Queen Latifahs 'Can't understand it' and tha Alkaholiks 'Next level' plus many more. R.I.P.

- Philip Oliver