Erykah Badu - On & On (Remix Edit)

What this video is

Released in December 1996 as the debut single from Erykah Badu's landmark album Baduizm, 'On & On' arrived at a pivotal moment when post-hip-hop Black music was searching for a new vocabulary beyond gangsta rap and new jack swing. The video's deliberate staging in an imagined 1930s–40s rural Black South — complete with juke joints, domestic labor, and Sunday dress — channeled the visual language of the African…

Why it matters

Widely identified as one of the first neo-soul singles to top the R&B charts, 'On & On' established the sonic and visual template for the genre: jazz-inflected production, spiritually conscious lyricism drawing on Five-Percent Nation cosmology, and music video aesthetics that rejected contemporary…

The director

Emmy-nominated American filmmaker and co-founder of commercial production company PRETTYBIRD. A native Californian who graduated from Cal State Northridge with a degree in Radio, TV & Film. Entered music video direction in 1995 and quickly became one of the…