Music

8 music videos featuring martial arts

by Jesse Locke

Living on Video is a weekly column that unearths forgotten VHS gems, Vimeo obscurities, and YouTube oddities from the musical ether—all obsessively curated by Weird Canada music editor Jesse Locke.

 

Inspired by the latest offering from Vancouver’s Tough Age, this week’s column is devoted to videos featuring various forms of martial arts. There’s a fine line between appreciation and appropriation, so I’ve dug up eight picks on the opposite end of the spectrum from this.

 

Tough Age – “I Waste Too Much Time On Myself”

Montreal’s Rob Feulner — the hazy brain behind Bleu Nuit Video—has been included here countless times before, but this team-up deserves a special shout out. The Bleu Nuit treatment for these bubblegum punx contrasts one of the most rollicking songs from the band’s self-titled debut with meditative shots of tai chi, then blasts them with a trademark arsenal of analog FX. A+!

 

Wu-Tang Clan – “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’”

When it comes to hip-hop inspired by martial arts, the Wu-Tang stranglehold has been going strong since ’92. Everyone from Jay Z to Jeru the Damaja have put their own spin on this trope, but it all goes back to the 36 Chambers.

 

Surinam – “Duel of the Iron Mic”

Staying in the Wu-Tang realm, Toronto-via-Oshawa loboto squad Surinam delivered this ballsy cover of one of the ballsiest songs from GZA’s Liquid Swords. The 1995 album samples heavily from martial arts films like Shogun Assassin and Dragon on Fire, and the band’s self-directed video carries on the tradition.

 

Dirty Beaches – “Casino Lisboa”

I’ve included this one in a previous column as well, but the badass shots of Muay Thai boxing are worth spotlighting again.

 

The Pharcyde – “Pandemonium”

It might not be as memorable as the Mortal Kombat theme—especially when it’s looped for 10 hours straight—but this soundtrack cut from 1994’s Street Fighter (starring JCVD), holds up a lot better than the movie. These shots of the Pharcyde green-screened inside the video game are dated in the best way possible.

 

Weezer – “Hash Pipe”

Shout out to High Times Magazine’s 2001 “Pot Song of the Year.”

 

Chemical Brothers – “Get Yourself High”

According to director Joseph Kahn, this 2003 video was edited on his laptop during a flight. It’s hard to imagine the work being done that quick and dirty, but I’m guessing that the sampled shots from 2 Champions of Shaolin mixed with 3D-rendered mouths, records and boomboxes took a whole lot longer behind the scenes. Plus: The finest moment from K-os?

 

Vanilla Ice – “Ninja Rap”

Go ninja, go ninja, go!