Gang Starr - Royalty ft. K-Ci Hailey, Jojo Hailey

What this video is

Released in 1997 as a pre-album single from Gang Starr's landmark 1998 LP 'Moment Of Truth,' 'Royalty' represents one of the defining crossover moments of late Golden Age hip-hop: the pairing of DJ Premier's spare, jazz-inflected boom-bap production with the smooth R&B harmonics of K-Ci & JoJo, who were simultaneously rising as one of the defining vocal duos of late-1990s Black pop. Filmed in Harlem and produced…

Why it matters

A key artifact of the hip-hop/R&B fusion crossover movement of 1997–1998, 'Royalty' demonstrates how East Coast underground rap acts strategically employed soul vocalist features to broaden mainstream appeal without abandoning lyrical credibility. The video's Harlem location shoot and roster of…

The director

Ronald Hightower (born January 25, 1966, Los Angeles, CA) is an American director who transitioned from adult film performance and direction in the early 1990s to mainstream music video direction in the mid-to-late 1990s. He directed music videos for hip-hop…