Southern rap legend and historian Bun B says JAY-Z was the first Hip-Hop artist to break the seven-figure bankroll to make a video.
While interviewing on The Residency Podcast, the UGK rapper said Hove was the first rapper to have a visual for a single, which back then really drove the hit record, which was over $1 million. It was for the song, “Big Pimpin.”
He said while rap videos had maxed over $1 million before— The 1996 Fugees’ $1.3 million “Ready or Not” comes to mind— he said the 1999 single that he and Pimp C hopped on and made an instant classic was the very first to get the big check from the gate.
“This was the first million-dollar budgeted rap video ever,” The Trill Burger founder said. “Now, rap videos had budgets that went over that [and] ended up costing a million dollars but blocked one million dollars just for this music video.”
Adding, “I had never seen anything like it. It was the first rap video I think on ‘Making a Video’ on MTV. It accelerated so quickly, and then within I wanna say three months it was the number one record on the planet.”
“Big Pimpin” was a huge marketing bill but was not before and definitely did not cost more than Diddy’s “Victory” single. That video cost approximately $2,500,000, which with the factor in the inflation rate of 2.39% per year for the 26 years between 1997 and today, would be about $4.6 million.
