POPSCREEN: Kanye West

The new music video for the “Classic” remix shows that not everything is just as it used to be 20 years ago. Featuring Kanye West, Nas, Rakim, and KRS-One—rap stars of today and yesterday—the video attempts to show the timelessness of hip hop culture and those famed Air Force One sneakers.

The video begins with legendary DJ Premier flipping through floppy disks and working an old mixer—not exactly Apple Garage Band—resulting in a fresh old-school beat a la the music of Marley Marl or the Fearless Four. The footage is interspersed with clips of MCs in studio, spitting their self-proclaimed “classic” rhymes, as well as shots of graffiti artists creating murals of the rappers’ names and the shoes.

However, instead of showcasing the timeless attributes of early hip hop culture, the video serves only to show how different things are, nowadays. The irony is that, regardless of how many so-called hip hop tropes are thrown across the screen, this song is about shoes that Nike paid these rappers to rap about. And though this is nothing new in the culture, it’s a solemn reminder of the capitalistic nature of rap today as supposed to the more innocent days of floppy disks and huge mixers in tiny studio rooms.

Similarly, a lot of the shots seem forced. As Kanye once again talks about dropping out of college, Rakim markets his next album, and KRS-One yells about something or other.

Nas, with his smooth and raspy delivery, is the video’s only savior—everything from the camera angles to the lighting suggests classic Nas videos like “One Mic.”

In the end, this video is no “My Adidas” or even an “Air Force Ones.” It’s a poor hoax that, after five-plus minutes, the clip leaves the audience nostalgic for something a little more “classic” than just shoes.