Sonic Youth - Kool Thing

What this video is

Released June 4, 1990, 'Kool Thing' marked Sonic Youth's debut on Geffen Records and their first professionally produced music video. The video explicitly engaged the cultural collision between downtown NYC noise rock and hip-hop, featuring Chuck D of Public Enemy and drawing visual iconography from Black Panther-era 1960s radicalism and hip-hop music video language. The desaturated, high-contrast aesthetic cited…

Why it matters

A landmark artifact of early 1990s alternative rock's major-label crossover moment, 'Kool Thing' is one of the most culturally legible intersections of noise rock and hip-hop in music video history. It exemplifies the feminist, politically engaged art-rock aesthetic that would define the early…

The director

Tamra Davis (born January 22, 1962) is an American film, television, and music video director who directed over 155 music videos across her career. She began directing videos for acts including Tone Loc, Depeche Mode, NWA, and Sonic Youth before…