EPMD - You Gots To Chill

What this video is

Released in 1988, 'You Gots to Chill' arrived at a pivotal juncture in hip-hop's regional evolution. Recorded at North Shore Soundworks in Long Island, EPMD's funk-driven sample palette—drawing on Zapp's 'More Bounce to the Ounce' and Kool & The Gang's 'Jungle Boogie'—was a deliberate departure from the James Brown-heavy New York norm of the era. The track and its video helped establish a new sonic and visual…

Why it matters

A foundational artifact of Golden Age boom bap, 'You Gots to Chill' is among the first hip-hop videos to center funk-interpolation production as a visual and sonic identity statement. Its influence on East Coast and West Coast sampling aesthetics is extensively documented. The video's…

The director

Adam Bernstein (born May 7, 1960, Princeton, NJ) is an American film, television, and music video director. He began his career as an animator and at age 26 produced the first original programming for Nickelodeon. He directed over seventy music videos and…