Hype Williams

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As one of Hip-Hop’s greatest talents, Jay-Z hasn’t always batted 100% when it comes to his videos. He admits it is hard for him to watch some of his older visuals.

HipHopDX is reporting that the Brooklyn, New York, native recently spoke to Complex about Hype Williams’ indelible contribution to the culture as a legendary music director. The music site spoke to many of Hype’s most noted collaborators including Missy Elliot, DJ Khaled and Jay-Z. Hov detailed some of his memorable shoots with the film producer. While recalling all their great work the “Dead Presidents” rapper went on to admit that he wasn’t the easiest rapper to work with when it came to bringing his songs to life.

“Hype definitely has a vision for what he wants to see. So he’d be like, ‘Yo, blow the smoke right here and this is gonna be crazy, it’s going to be bananas!’ he explained. “But I don’t know if I was coachable as far as a performance at that time. I don’t know if anyone could coach me, you know, because I was so guarded. I think about the early videos that I have and I listen to myself talking and it’s kind of hard for me to watch. That’s not even how I speak.”
Jay-Z also discussed “Sunshine,” a video that his core fanbase at the time deemed a crossover attempt to grab some of Bad Boy Entertainment’s light. He said the original idea for the shoot was even more grand than the final product. “And then he said the number, and I think it was, like, $1.8 million or something. And I was like, ‘Hype, come on, bro.’ Like I got mad at him. Like are you trying to play me? You think I’m dumb?” he recalled.
“So to fit the budget we stripped the idea down. And I learned a valuable lesson from that. Either I’m going to trust Hype’s vision or I’m going to go with another idea,” he added. “I remember receiving criticism from that video, but I think because of Reasonable Doubt, everyone had this different sort of expectation for me. I’m not going to say it was great. It’s a good song and I just think people didn’t want that from me at the time.”
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You can read the rest of Jay-Z’s interview where he denied he was originally supposed to have DMX’s role in Belly and more here.