Public Enemy - He Got Game ft. Stephen Stills

What this video is

Released in May 1998 as the sole single from Spike Lee's He Got Game soundtrack, this video sits at a unique cultural crossroads: a reunited Public Enemy (returning from a four-year hiatus), the interpolation of Buffalo Springfield's 1966 protest anthem 'For What It's Worth' via Stephen Stills himself, and Spike Lee's longstanding visual vocabulary of Black political cinema. The song and video use basketball as a…

Why it matters

A landmark in conscious rap's cinematic ambitions, 'He Got Game' represents the apex of hip-hop's late-90s engagement with prestige film culture. It is one of the rare instances of a major film director helming a companion music video as an extension of a feature film's thematic world, and the…

The director

Shelton Jackson 'Spike' Lee (born March 20, 1957, Atlanta, GA) is an American filmmaker, actor, and producer. He studied at Morehouse College and earned an MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. His production company 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks has…