Nas - One Mic (Official HD Video) !EXCLUSIVE!
A music video for "One Mic" was directed by Chris Robinson and released on December 17, 2001,[9] receiving heavy rotation on MTV,[22] and 2002 MTV Video Music Award nominations for Best Rap Video and Video of the Year.[23] Robinson said in an interview with MTV that he wanted to feature references to the 1976 Soweto uprising in a music video, ultimately persuading Nas to include it in the video for the song.[24] After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the video's production ran into difficulties due to the restrictions on international travel. The scene in the video of the riots was instead filmed in Los Angeles with participants from a local inner-city baseball team playing the rioters.[24] The scene of the rock being thrown in the direction of the camera was taken over 10 times (the actor "had a bit of a curve on his throwing arm," according to Robinson) before post-production work managed to complete the desired effect.[24] Robinson also told his director of photography to open and close the shutters of the camera in the apartment scene, creating an effect of blurred streaks of light.[24]
Nas - One Mic (Official HD Video)
The video begins with a montage of scenes from inner-city areas of New York City, followed by a camera shot of an apartment window in which a light has just been turned on.[25] The video then centralizes upon a view of Nas reflectively rapping with a single microphone in a bare apartment room. While Nas is rapping, the video switches to a scene of a routine police stop of four suspects which quickly escalates to an on-foot chase of the suspects by police as a surprised elder bystander "fiend drops his Heineken" onto the asphalt.[25] The suspects and the police dramatically part around Nas, who is rapping in the middle of the street, as they continue the chase around a corner. As Nas shouts "The Time is Now!", the scene cuts back to Nas rapping in the barren apartment room with the microphone.[25]
The video transitions to a scene in Soweto at the beginning of the 1976 uprising, in which a protester rallies a crowd of residents against the government while baton-wielding black and white soldiers of the SADF prepare for the impending crackdown on the protesters.[25] Gradually, the scene escalates to violence, with the impetus being a rock thrown in the direction of the camera.[25] Soon, the two sides clash on the dirt road, and Nas pauses to a steady iteration of "One Mic" while standing contrastedly in the middle of the ongoing violence, the scene ending with the silent scream (symbolized by a descending piano) of a little bystanding Soweto girl as the scene cuts back to Nas, in the apartment room, kicking the chair and launching headfirst into a full-blown litany.[25] The Soweto scene is interpolated with various scenes of young people listening and lip-syncing the lyrics, including a teenager wearing headphones in an apartment bedroom beside her younger sister, a group of Latino men sitting in a car and a young, angry Los Angeles County prisoner behind bars.[25] Gradually, as the camera overlays a view of Nas upon the forward-moving shot of a street, the video then calms down alongside the descending tone of the song, the facial determination of Nas and other participants in the video remaining visible as the video draws to a close with the light in the apartment window turning off.[25]
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This song was released in 1999, and it also features Puff Daddy. Characterized by a sense of aggression throughout the lyrics, Nas seeks to call out different groups of people throughout the song. At the same time, it contains his customary easy flow through the lyrics. Just forget about the controversy surrounding the video, as it takes so much away from a powerful rap song. 041b061a72