Video Breakdown: Mobb Deep’s “Quiet Storm”

Mobb Deep have been in the hip-hop game 17-plus years. Throughout all this time the thing that has helped them stand apart from their peers, going back to their early days of their breakout album "The Infamous", has been their hard hitting and dark lyrics and the stark reality they portray. The two MCs from Queens have always managed to bring to life a uniquely harsh vision of street life with their lyrics. They continue to paint haunting pictures with their 1999 video for “The Quiet Storm” directed by Joseph Kahn.



With a high production value and budget especially for a Mobb Deep video, the crisp 35mm look of “Quiet Storm” immediately enhances the stark images that Kahn uses to narrate the Mobb Deep video. Coming from a background in directing hip-hop video (his street hip-hop videos are what first got him noticed by producers in Hollywood and led to him dropping out of NYU film school to pursue a career as a music video director) but moving on to do more mainstream fare such as Britney Spears and Lady Gaga videos, music video prodigy Kahn did not forget his hip-hop roots when directing “Quiet Storm” but instead used the experience he gained on higher budget pop videos to take this hip-hop video to a higher level conceptually and production value-wise.

The video plays like a mini action movie, almost as if Havoc and Prodigy were dropped into the final scenes of "Terminator 2" in which the Skynet Laboratories are under attack from the LA SWAT team. The foreboding rain outdoors and the SWAT officers anxiously waiting outside to make their way inside the building help build the tension and narrative of the video’s opening scenes. They also fit perfectly with the title and lyrics of the song. Inside the building Havoc and P. rap while simultaneously orchestrating a secret heist/infiltration of a top security compound. The dark colors, the action movie conventions and the superb execution make this more than a music video, instead it plays like a movie. Unlike most hip-hop videos, there is a very strong narrative that is seamlessly integrated with the performance by the two members of Mobb Deep. It’s not just Mobb Deep rapping in front of different cool looking backgrounds but them acting parts in a movie and performing while doing it. As Havoc and Prodigy escape from the SWAT Team they plant their bomb in the compound and slip out unnoticed, ending the narrative story arc of the video, arguably one of Kahn and Mobb Deep’s best videos.