The 2000s don’t feel that long ago, but the nostalgia for the decade is in hyperdrive, especially in the UK rap scene. Take the music video for YT’s “#Purrr,” the London rapper’s 2023 #StillSwaggin single that flips Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” into a new-age jerk anthem. Directed by Lauzza, the clip is set at a Solo Cup–riddled bash that blends the comedic framework of J-Kwon’s parents-out-of-town blowout on “Tipsy” with the wasted frat party vibe of Wiz Khalifa’s “In the Cut.” A girl at the party is wearing Union Jack shuttershades. YT is rocking the kind of YMCMB snapback that Tyga probably wore. “Still Swaggin” is written on his T-shirt in the gold and purple Hannah Montana font. Empty bottles of Smirnoff Ice are on the floor. It’s an incredible visual time machine that, merged with his jerk revivalist sound, communicates that YT is making the kind of low stakes turn-up music that was en vogue in the days when the New Boyz were sagging their skinny jeans and Drake was still learning to grow a beard.
This retro aesthetic now defines a reborn British underground, one that has been in a full-court press for the last few weeks. Recently, Dazed Digital dropped an expansive cover with the headline “The Underground Artists Leading the UK’s Rap Revolution,” which highlighted eight new-ish rappers and the radio platform Victory Lap. Then, popular streamer PlaqueBoyMax brought his “In the Booth” series overseas, featuring everyone from Skepta and the Conglomerate boys to faces of the current underground generation like the aforementioned YT and Jim Legxacy. On Legxacy’s catchy new single “Father,” which sounds like he laid down his melodic gloom over a peak Heatmakerz beat, a voice on the intro says, “Black British music/We’ve been making asses shake since the Windrush.” The overall message is that there is a unified scene in the UK ready for the spotlight. A huge part of the presentation is the videos.
And the videos are eye-catching and made with plenty of skill and taste. Their attention-to-detail is nuts—the production crew on Feng’s “Kids From the West” should get jobs on the next Paul Thomas Anderson period piece. And, lately, Lauzza has leaned into green-screen technology, where the intricacies of the editing and motion graphics, and the euphoric blast of colors are mindblowing. (Check, Fimiguerrero and YT’s “MVP,” in which Lauzza and crew do such a spot-on recreation of grainy NBA Street V3 scenes that it’s borderline creepy.) But only a handful of these videos are using these era signifiers to say anything about the music. Nostalgia is the brand, rather than a gateway to better understand the rappers.
The biggest culprit of the bunch is Len’s “Pinktesla”—directed by Len and Moi—which is strongly evocative of the black silhouette iTunes commercials of the 2000s. Sure, it’s done well, but rehashing a retro ad by one of the largest corporations in the world isn’t exactly what I consider #inspired. There’s not much appeal to the concept other than it’s a mirror image of something I saw on TV a lot, a drag since the song itself is a banger mix of swag-rap flash and fast-paced Afropop rhythms that has me wanting to know more about him. At least it’s pretty fun watching his drunk-uncle two-step. I have a similar grievance with the American Apparel promo pastiche of Fakemink’s “Easter Pink,” shot by Nategotsis. It’s obvious he’s going for the indie sleaze thing that the song gestures at—young girls swing their hair and a bleach-blond dude puffs on a cigarette—but the vision feels incomplete and vague, tied too strongly to commercial images that don’t have a lot of meaning on their own. Worst of all, the music becomes an afterthought.
