Mackelmore's Downtown video is the best music video in the world
I must share this gift
Guys being silly in groups.
Women being hot.
90s fashion.
ART in the form of motorcycles.
Vibrant, cinematic colors.
Mackelmore’s 9-year-old music video for “Downtown” is the music video you have to see.
The silliness makes me lose it and draws me in deeper than [your mom].
This song is about cruising with your homies on mopeds, sung and rapped sincerely.
Sincere silliness, meaning that it’s self-aware and yet totally and completely happily selling it; it is a love drug. It is the vibe. The ultimate.
Know what else is the best? When singers belt. When they just rip their part as hard as they can without losing the notes. That’s where Ryan Lewis comes in, on a motorcycle chariot, with a break in tone and quality that elevates the song. He can sing pretty, he can do a lil scream. He does some of both, complimented by the type of background choral chanting that will always catch me singing along. OOOoooooOOoooOooOO.
And I’ve barely touched the visuals.
The colors are cinematic, with the kind of care normally reserved for full-length movies. They’re beautiful. As is the framing.
The colors are vibrant, like candy, and the women are adorable and sexy. Mackelmore’s acting is happy and fun. So are all the big buff black guys and guest artists in his gang. There’s Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Caz, and Eric Nally. They dance. They act a lil. They’re dumb and silly together. They’re all in on it! They let US in on it!
People are running around the streets without a phone in sight, giving the viewers a glimpse into a glorious time we didn’t know enough to treasure.
When I say ART in the form of motorcycles, I mean art-car-versions that are probably as self-aware as this video.
Look at this thing:
I, Samantha Faulhaber, believe that this honors that moose. That somebody combined care, reverence, passion, and art to pour this sucker out of their veins. They created something ridiculous, and its impracticality makes it art. It exists only because somebody bled it out of their soul in a violent need to create and to see if they could. Same with the chariot which is tagged as one of the “most replayed” moments in the video.
There’s West-Side-Story-dancing-men.
And the pacing is beautifully matched with the song, moving faster or slower or hitting the beats.
It is one of two music videos I actually paid my money for on the apple platform so I could have it on my phone always. The other is The Killers - Miss Atomic Bomb.
It’s fun to watch. It’s fun to sing along to.
You can see it here. Watch it enough that you realize you agree with me, and let the feelings boil your internals until you need to scream or send creation out from your own soul.