I am a massive music video fan - especially in rap, which has such a focus on the individual expression and identity of its artists, music videos present an opportunity for the listener-viewer to get up close and personal with a representation of the artist. And a MV doesn't need to be particularly fancy to achieve this effect: I think back to relatively simple videos like Sidney Phillips's "Effy" or tjweaver's "FML" are nothing more than a rapper rapping at a camera, but held so much interest for me as I got into underground aus music in 2022-23.
Anyway, what I want to do here is a quick survey of three of the most significant MV video directors doing the rounds in the underground in the big 2026 (not going over every director out there but just a few I've been thinking about a lot). The music video director as a personality in their own right is a super interesting invention of the social media age, most famously in rap with directors like Cole Bennet in the US. In Australia we have our own Cole, Cole Surrey, who started out working especially in diy, underground rap-adjacent circles but has within a couple of years grown his CHANGE brand and stature as a director to the point where he is doing videos for non-rappers like The DMAs as well as more polished Aus rappers like YNG Martyr and Cult Shotta. I think Cole's work as both a director and general champion for Australian music is incredible and his CHANGE channel is an amazing archive of videos and songs. That said Cole's polished, mature, elegant video aesthetic is not my personal favourite - I am a sucker for DIY, overstated, overblown aesthetics. It's a testament to Cole's ambition and vision that you can always feel his directorial prescense in the videos but I usually prefer less director and more performer, if that makes sense. However, I think he strikes the balance perfectly on his recent video for Jonny Chopps's "Haha", which looks stunning but never strays from the main task at hand of showcasing Jonny and his song.
The big breakout videographer in 2025 was mp4oscar, who has made both some of my favourite and least favourite videos of the past year. In the favourite column is his video for licuh's "rhinestønes", which features a flickering collage of text and symbols over performance shots of the ever enigmatic licuh (now going by lashmonitor). I love the collection of text and images that flash up throughout the video as they seem genuinely personalised to the song and the artist and imbue every shot with something to explore (I commented on the video "every frame is like a picasso"). It helps that the song is one of my favourites ever but I truly think this video is a high watermark in the history of ug aus rap videos. On the other hand there is the mixed work Oscar did for the Lonely Souljaz tape, which veers from the mind-melting "pentagon" with Ball Bass John (a great video), to the perfectly passable performance-shot-heavy videos for songs like "ceebs" and "honey pack", to the truly diabolical "crazy caveman frog" video which is somehow worse than the song it is attached to. This video falls into the "video shoot gone wrong" genre which has produced classics like Young Thug's "Wyclef Jean", but the "crazy caveman frog one" just doesn't take advantage of the opportunity and ends up a bit of a snooze - Cult Shotta's description of the shoot gone wrong in a Take Flight interview is miles more entertaining than the video turned out to be. Tbf Oscar does say in his interview with Ben Madden the whole Lonely Souljaz roll out was pulled together very quickly so I don't doubt that future mp4oscar work will be more consistent.
If you ever start to feel a bit seasick while watching an undeground aus rap video, you are probably watching a BigMel clip. Early BigMel videos are characterised by a see-sawing camera movement, which is a good gimmick that gave him a strong directorial prescence without distracting from the artist and their song. See dexter's "being someone else" video and the Jonny Chopps "Walk Out the Store" video for straightforward examples. But more recently BigMel has added further strings to his bow, with the video for Tetohundred's "Rip Seams" featuring jaw-droppingly gorgeous B-roll of a domed church roof, cyclists floating around velodrome, and Rh3tt's iconic white Toyota Camry. BigMel's latest work is the first video in the lead up for the upcoming Sidney Phillips album: the video for "Levitate" is a step further yet with the addition of interspersed, trippy overlays in between the performance shots and contemplative shots of architecture and tree canopy. The visual language that BigMel is iteratively building is turning out beautifully.
There are many other directors out there who do great work with specific artists and behind the scenes, but in a post-Passive Kneeling era, these 3, plus Ball Bass John (see this r00ts video for an intro to his work), are the people catching my eye in the Cole Bennet celebrity videographer mould. However for me nothing will ever beat the homemade video, which is still going strong in 2026 among smaller artists. I leave you here with four more or less homemade but effective examples for inspiration, from 16-year old yusi out of Naarm, a couple from diy video veterans Bammer2K and agony, and the latest from multimodal master of his craft 3vergard.