Heavy D & The Boyz - Nuttin' But Love

What this video is

Released in 1994, 'Nuttin' But Love' sits at a pivotal juncture in hip-hop history: Uptown Records was at its commercial peak, having popularized the New Jack Swing-to-pop-rap pipeline, while the broader genre was about to be transformed by the arrival of the Notorious B.I.G. and the Bad Boy aesthetic. Heavy D's warm, lover-man persona and the video's aspirational social-gathering visual language represent the last…

Why it matters

Represents the mature commercial form of early-90s East Coast pop-rap, demonstrating how Uptown Records refined the hip-hop music video as an aspirational lifestyle document. The warm social-gathering format and R&B-inflected visual sensibility prefigure the opulent, party-centered aesthetics that…

The director

Brett Ratner (born March 28, 1969, Miami Beach, FL) is an American film director and producer who graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 1990. He began his career directing music videos in the 1990s before his 1997 feature debut Money Talks, followed…