A Music Video Filmed In Montreal Was Named One Of The Best Of All Time By Rolling Stone

This bop from 2011 was just ranked among the 100 greatest music videos ever.

Senior Writer

A music video filmed in Montreal has made it to Rolling Stone Magazine's list of "The 100 Greatest Music Videos" of all time.

Azealia Banks' video for "212" — filmed in Montreal in 2011 — was ranked number 84 on the music authority's list.

The black-and-white video shows Banks mouthing the words to the song in front of a brick wall.

The video also features cameos by Quebec record producers Lunice and Jacques Greene.

According to Rolling Stone staff, "It really is all the small details that make the clip such a memorable artifact: the Mickey Mouse sweater, the quick cuts through a Harlem bodega, the Yung Rapunzel's confrontational rapping into the ear of a bespectacled (and amused) Jacques Greene."

In 2019, Greene told Billboard that he met Banks through his friend, her manager, when she was living in Montreal during the summer of 2011.

He's quoted as saying, "It was this funny thing where everything she did felt like it was immediately iconic, but the day-to-day life of Montreal normalizes things to where she was also just 'Azealia.'"

You can check out the full music video on YouTube.

  • Ilana Belfer
  • Editor

    Ilana Belfer (she/her) was an editor for MTL Blog. She's obsessed with great storytelling in all its forms having worked in print, radio, television, theatre, and digital media over the past decade. A graduate of Carleton University’s journalism program, her words have appeared in The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, The Kit, VICE, Salon, Foodism TO & more — covering everything from cam girls to COVID-19. Ilana can usually be found with her dog André, tracking down Montreal’s prettiest ruelles vertes and tastiest treats.

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