Mildly Ridiculous Rap Music Video Round-Up

Videos from Young Jeezy, Jamie Foxx, and Kanye West prove the recession ain't breaking the idea bank.

Circulate - Young Jeezy

(in which Jeezy demonstrates his knowledge of monetary policy, stunning shortness, and burning desire to be Barack Obama)

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Young Jeezy's anthemic new single produced by Cannon has to be the best track off his new album, The Recession. The accompanying video attempts to reach such epic heights as the blaring chorus's horns (goddamn, those horns!), but, come on, this thing is absolutely hilarious, for a few reasons:

1. Interpolating shots of D.C. landmarks, Jeezy being dwarfed by an American flag, and his looking, generally, presidential, all are glaringly obvious, ahem.

2. The first chorus's "unemployment on the rise" synced with the two girls licking the caked knife (0:53), intentional or not, is a thing of beauty.

3. For all the song's boasting lyrics, the video is ridiculously tame. The bottle of Grey Goose is never opened, those glasses are never even sipped, the girls (albeit ridiculously attractive) are quite conservative in their dress and their raging, and Jeezy himself maintains a pretty low level of excitement the whole three and a half minutes. Considering The Recession's album sales weren't too hot, the guy might actually be hard up for cash.

Video aside, the track is stellar, you have to admit (ugh, those horns, man).

Blame It - Jamie Foxx ft. T-Pain

(in which Foxx rolls into the club accompanied by a mélange of his closest actor friends and Richie Cunningham)

Ron Howard, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jake Gyllenhaal alongside T-Pain. I don't need to say anything more.

The song, though, I must admit, is stupidly, nay, retardedly catchy and I'd go so far to say it's in the top ten pop songs of the year thus far.

Also, the panda at the end? THAT should be Ron Howard.

Welcome to Heartbreak - Kanye West ft. Kid Cudi

(in which Ye fucks with you by making the video supposed to look like your Internet connection crapped out on you)

Undoubtedly the most visually interesting video of the three mildly ridiculous specimens here, it's also the most annoyingly self-indulgent. I mean, it's Kanye, sure, but Christ, weren't "Heartless" and "Love Lockdown" enough?

Emotional masturbation aside, one has to give Ye serious props for stepping up his music video game in promotion of 808s: "Lock Lockdown" and "Heartless" were easily the coolest and most compelling videos rap had seen in while (whether the music was good or not is another argument to be had at another time). "Welcome to Heartbreak" continues in the same experimental vein as his music and his previous two visual efforts, and it certainly pays off. Kanye winks towards music videos' new online medium and the frustrating glitches viewers encounter in watching them, lending the whole experiment a meta vibe.

[WAS]