Everlast - What It's Like

What this video is

Released July 1998, 'What It's Like' arrived during a pivotal moment in American alternative radio when hip-hop artists were successfully crossing into rock formats. Everlast — formerly of hip-hop trio House of Pain — used the song and its video to reposition his identity around blues, folk, and rock while maintaining hip-hop cadence. The video's social realist imagery of poverty, marginalization, and class…

Why it matters

A landmark of the rap-rock-blues fusion wave of the late 1990s, this video visually codified the genre's working-class, anti-gloss aesthetic. Its success on Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts simultaneously helped establish that hip-hop artists could command rock video spaces without…

The director

Frank Sacramento is a music video director credited with helming Everlast's 'What It's Like' (1998), filmed in Los Angeles. The video is listed in his directing credits on IMDb (tt8913212) and IMVDb. No additional verifiable biographical details are…