Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass

2007

Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass (2007) Director: Ordinary Kids (SF) Era: Post-Def Jux Underground Hip-Hop (2007–2009) - Late Definitive Jux era; animated video released in support of Aesop Rock's fifth studio album, bridging underground hip-hop's print-art and early web-video cultures. High. The 'None Shall Pass' video is a defining artifact of 2000s alternative hip-hop visual culture, notable for its seamless integration of an established fine artist's illustrations into animated form, its fast-cut rhythm synchronized to one of the era's most celebrated underground rap tracks, and its documentation of the Def Jux label aesthetic at its apex. It is regularly cited in retrospectives of animated music videos and represents a blueprint for the art-rap video format. Context: Released in 2007 on Definitive Jux, one of the most critically regarded underground hip-hop labels of the 2000s, 'None Shall Pass' arrived at a moment when the alternative hip-hop scene was consolidating around dense lyricism, independent visual art, and DIY web distribution. The video's decision to animate Jeremy Fish's existing album illustrations rather than shoot live footage was itself a statement of the era's art-rap ethos: music, visual art, and subcultural identity treated as a unified object. Fish and Aesop Rock's San Francisco-rooted collaboration drew from lowbrow pop-surrealism, skateboard graphic lineage, and screen-print culture, situating the video firmly within the Bay Area independent arts ecosystem of the mid-2000s. The album debuted at #50 on the Billboard 200, demonstrating underground hip-hop's growing mainstream presence while retaining aesthetic independence. Director notes: The video was directed by Ordinary Kids (SF) in collaboration with Aesop Rock, and features the art of Jeremy Fish, the same illustrator who created all artwork for the album 'None Shall Pass' (Def Jux, 2007). A 'making of' video documented by EPIC-FU (2008) features Aesop Rock discussing the meaning of the imagery. The visual approach animates and sequences Fish's static illustrations into a kinetic collage, with each shot tightly cut to Aesop Rock's dense lyrical rhythm. The IMVDb page for the video (2009 release date listed) carries no individual director credits, but multiple independent sources, including a Dailymotion upload description and a 2009 music blog retrospective, consistently credit Ordinary Kids as directors. Jeremy Fish and Aesop Rock had been collaborating since 2005 following Aesop's move to San Francisco, culminating in the 'The Next Best Thing' book (2006) and then the full album visual identity for 'None Shall Pass.'