One of our favorite things about director Carlos Lopez Estrada is his ability to bring beauty in otherwise violent circumstances. Whether it’s bullet holes full of yarn, or a zebra that bleeds confetti, Carlos always finds a way to turn dark situations into something magical. In his latest video for “Work Work” by Clipping, he doubles down on dark, but still manages to fit in some skin-crawlingly beautiful elements into the violence. The video features Clipping frontman Daveed Diggs kissing the curb - a move made famous in pop culture through the 1998 Tony Kaye film American History X - as featured rapper Cocc Pistol Cree hold her foot up above his head, ready to stomp down and bust Daveed’s whole shit open. The single shot video begins inside of Daveed’s mouth, which is full of rats, and twists around Daveed and Cocc leading up to the fatal stomp and Cocc’s getaway with the other two members of Clipping. We asked Carlos where the concept of the video came from, and this is what he told us:

The one thing Clipping said they did *not* want was a video that relied heavily on performance, so I tried to think of different scenarios that would make it uncomfortable for Daveed to perform under and pitched the idea of him trying to rap while being forced to kiss a curb. Needless to say, they loved it. The rest of the visuals were inspired by the sounds Jonathan and Bill used to create the beat of the song, which I believe is made up of broken cinder blocks, crashing beer cans, and other debris sounds.

"Work Work" was produced by Sarah Lawson for Doomsday Entertainment and can be found on the album clipping.

Doug Klinger is the co-founder/content director of IMVDb and watches more music videos than anyone on earth. You can find him on twitter at @doug_klinger.