Review of A$AP Rocky's L$D Music Video

Rapper A$AP Rocky’s song L$D is one of the best music videos I have ever seen. Nominated for both Best Music Video at the 58th Grammy Awards and MTV’s video music awards for best editing, it is a visual masterpiece in my opinion. The video starts off with Rocky walking through the illuminated lights of Tokyo. The low camera angles are used to make the city look larger than the character as he walks by the skyscrapers.

What makes the video so interesting and unique from other rap videos is that it is mixed with very heavy special effects and editing. Since the song is about Rocky falling in love with someone in Japan while on the drug LSD, the music video depicts a very euphoric and luminescent outlook on the city itself and his life. There is a lot of panning left or dollying in and out to follow ASAP as he walks through the streets. I personally love the parts where it takes a real object and then zooms in and it switches to a trippy effect and you end up somewhere else. An example of this is at 38 seconds where ASAP steps into a taxi and the camera focuses in and zooms in on the back lights. Then the lights turn into a psychedelic swirl and we find ourselves in the next scene, in the middle of the city. Throughout the video it mixes reality and distortion with bright lights and effects. It is supposed to feel like how someone on LSD may feel walking through the city and what they would be seeing. The heavy saturation and bright colors make the background stand out. Flashing lights and different effects bring a unique aspect to this video.

It goes between slow motion and fast pace switching between the two a lot. All the camera movements are very distinct and smooth, but at the same time you can tell the way they swerve the camera or make it go upside down is a way to express the way the drugs would feel.

Interestingly enough, about three quarters of the way through the video it changes to a snippet of another one of ASAP’s songs which completely changes the vibe of the video. This part reminds me more of a conventional and classic rap video because it shows A$AP pulling out his gold necklaces and chains representing his wealth which many rappers tend to show.

Something else that is a classic element of a rap music video, that this video also has, is a girl. There are always girls who are being seduced in rap music and this video also has a girl conquest that A$AP Rocky is trying to be with or have.

The video cuts back to L$D and the hallucinogenic visuals, distorting reality and psychedelic effects together. The video does not really have a timeline and I think this could be to enforce the effects of taking acid and how there is no sense of time or the difference between what you are seeing and whether it is real or not.

Overall, this music video did a very good job with using different camera angles like panning, trucking and dollying, while mixing in very advanced and technical aspects with special effects and other things that were done on computers during the editing process. I felt like many camera movements were put together like panning and tilting at the same time which was very interesting.

This song was made so much better just by the production and outcome of the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEG2VTHS9yg&list=PLN3OJdZpqwMHrw1usskHzJR9tf7Hj85dA