ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW - HYPE WILLIAMS

by Strong Look, 29 March 2011

 

 

Hype Williams born 1971, in Queens New York started producing and directing music videos in 1991; and since has gone on to produce over 250 music videos in a 20-year career. In that time he’s worked with some of the greatest names in Black music and rarely stepped out to produce videos of other ethnicity, nationality or genre; it’s pretty much been consistently black African-American Rap and RnB artists apart from a few exceptions such as No Doubt ‘Ex-Girlfriend’, a frankly awful ‘lo-fi?’ video for Roni Size/Reprazent ‘Who Told You’, and terrible artists such as Coldplay, taTu and Hoobastank.

It’s hard to say he qualifies as one of the ‘greatest’ music video directors of all time, his videos are mainstream, big budget, every video is full of a tonne of different overused director trademarks such as; fish-eye, pseudo-stop frame, monochrome, sepia, they cut very fast, there’s consistent explosions and slo-mo and in 2006 pretty much of all his videos were identical, where he took a very keen interest in using the negative space of widescreen.

While his resume is impressive it’s hard to put him up there with directors such as Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, or Chris Cunningham, all of whom have been SO creative and who have all moved onto bigger things; Hype’s had one flirtation with feature length; his 1998 movie Belly starring Nas, DMX, T-Boz of TLC and the Wu-Tang’s Method Man. His videos often employ surreal elements, but they are hardly ever abstract and far from Avant-Garde.

He’s also often unoriginal and uses a lot of reference to movies and the creative works of others, twice he’s seemingly ripped off Ed Banger illustrator and music director So-Me in Big-Sean’s ‘Getcha Some’ and Kanye West’s ‘All of the Lights’.

Aside from these criticisms he does have a bunch of great videos to his name too.

 

Jodeci 'Feenin'

 

 

Hype Williams has 2 trademarks of his own which are so much more subtle and don’t give the vibe of being overplayed, one of them is using a different song by a different artist in the intro of a video and another is having like 10 seconds of silence at the start of a video. You can see the later used in this songs cameo packed intro before it seemingly sets the template for boyband music videos, featuring the band going crazy over a girl wrapped in straight jackets and being seen to by medical professionals.

 

The Notorious B.I.G. 'Warning'

 

 

P.Diddy as an actor works, so much more than he is a rapper or anything else he’s done, maybe just in a comedy role, hell I’ve only seen him in I’m Still Here and Get Him To The Greek…. But nevermind. I really liked those movies, especially P.Diddy’s appearances “now that’s a mindfuck!”

Here we see P.Diddy testing out some of those acting skills as the video plays out to the songs narrative and ends with a, pretty sweet gun-fight.

 

2Pac 'California Love'

 

Part 1

 

 

Part 2

 

 

It’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome but it’s a sensation, spread over 2 parts with a remix-party video picking up from part 1’s cliff-hanger ending to reveal part-1 was all a dream and Dre’s having a party. Part-1 is also notable for great cameos from Chris Tucker, George Clinton and The Zapp’s Roger Troutman from which the track samples.

 

Busta Rhymes

 

'Woo Hah'

 

 

'Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See'

 

 

'Dangerous'

 

 

'Gimme Some More'

 

 

'Fire'

 

 

Most of Hype’s videos for Busta Rhymes are pretty similar but they are are very evocative of what is clearly a very fluid working relationship, Hype seems to develop different styles with different artists, his early work with P.Diddy always pretty gangster, later pretty golf and bling, while Busta gets to wear dozens of different costumes and becomes a grand surreal entity perfect for the music video form, with many speeded up sections to add a strange velocity to Busta’s movements the style often comes near to surreal videoart such as Matthew Barney’s ‘Cremaster Cycle’.

 

Missy Elliot

 

'The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)'

 

 

'She's A Bitch'

 

 

Hype’s work with Missy is similar to his work with Busta but seemingly gets way more buzz. ‘The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)’ a legitimate game changer in hip-hop, she inhabits a whole bunch of different outfits like Busta but brings different swagger, and characterisation to them too. The special effects are among Hype’s best. ‘She’s a Bitch’ is my favourite as Missy plays a bedazzled cowgirl, and a kinda Batman/Darth Vader combo (amongst others) but the highlight is when she rides out of the sea on a stormy night on a giant M with a S&M spike adorned dancecrew and the sky ignites with lightning all in a rich black and white.

 

Busta Rhymes and Janet Jackson 'What's it gonna be?'

 

 

One of  Hype’s best works; both performers get their personalities translated well and the special fx work utilises the liquid metal of T2 and it features a metal marching band along with a morphing Busta and even raining thousands of mini Busta’s. Everything inch of this video is chromed!

 

Hype’s well known for the glitzy 90’s fish-eye style too, best seen on

 

Notorious B.I.G 'Mo Money, Mo Problems'

 

 

Ma$e 'Feel So Good'

 

 

Will Smith 'Getting Jiggy With It'

 

 

In 2006 Hype employed a technique on pretty much all of his output, utilising the negative space in widescreen, which he’d previously utilised by making it white, great for all those bling-era videos with diamonds on yacht’s. Using a few variations upon this framing even including picture frames in videos for Pharrell Williams ‘Angel’

 

 

and Young Jeezy ‘My Hood’

 

 

His work has so many different styles and it’s an output so colossal his work might be better valued if there was less of it, and if he worked with a more diverse selection of artists, I’d be really excited to see him work with any other artist that is doing something different and breaking new ground outside of Rap and RnB.

 

For more go to here (Video Playlist 1991 - 2006) and here (Video Playlist 2007 +).