Music videos can be crucial for Hip Hop artists because they act as powerful, free, and accessible platforms for global discovery, brand building, fan engagement, and monetization. In theory, it also puts the power back into the artists’ hands simply by bypassing the traditional music industry gatekeepers. YouTube transcends [most] geographical boundaries and gives independent artists a way to be seen, heard, and discovered. Visual storytelling, it could be argued, is just as important as beats or lyrical prowess.

Each year, LiFTED posts hundreds of new videos from the Asian Hip Hop world, and these are the 10 [or so] best ones of 2025.

When certain artists get together, sometimes things just click. Yung Raja and Shan Vincent de Paul are both incredible MCs with growing careers in their own right, but together, they turned it up a notch in 2025. Their two-video run started with the mind-bending ‘AIYO!’, a video they shot together and separately for a year in various parts of the globe. They then repeated that unrepeatable magic with ‘BRAND NEW!’, where the focus was Japanese anime, live-action dancers, and chaos for the sake of chaos. The question is not which one is better. Instead, we all want to know when the third part to the trilogy is dropping.

For the past few years, Awich has been unstoppable. She’s done everything right, and dropping ‘Asian State of Mind’ with MaSiWei, VannDa, KR$NA, and Jay Park got the whole continent riding for her. Then what did she do? She switched hemispheres, languages, and got RZA to produce ‘Wax On Wax Off’ with heavyweights FERG and Lupe Fiasco. Nobody else could have done that.

This twofer was executed flawlessly, from traveling to each MC’s home country to get footage with them in ‘Asian State of Mind’, as well as the massive scale of her homage to Okinawa with all the extras in ‘Wax On Wax Off.’ With the release of her full album produced by the RZA, we’re pounding the drums loudly for Awich’s full membership into the Wu-Tang Clan.

Mixing Cantonese and Memphis Rap is a bit like stinky tofu. It feels like it shouldn’t work, but on 揽佬SKAI ISYOURGOD’s ‘Blueprint Supreme 大展鸿图,’ all the pieces come together for the perfect fit. After hijacking the radio, or anything with a speaker, the video for ‘Blueprint Supreme 大展鸿图’ was released and the song got even bigger. Soon, Skai was rapping for NBA players and passing Jay Chou on Spotify. Does Skai have the blueprint supreme for longevity in the Rap game? Let the grand ambitions unfold.

In 2024, it was a close squabble between Yuki Chiba’s ‘Team Tomodochi’ and Hanumankind’s ‘Big Dawgs’ for the top spot. Yuki won by a hair because all the other rappers jumped on his track and blew ‘Tomodochi’ into the stratosphere. But to be honest, Hanumankind’s actual video was better with the Well of Death. The only thing about making one of the dopest videos ever is that the next one has to be just as good. ‘Run It Up’ lives up to the hype because the ‘Big Dawg’ team got back together and added some Indian martial arts and ever accelerating Chenda drums.

In a cross between cosplay, Emo goth, and AI, Chengdu’s Four4444 resurrects King Von and raps like she is the lead singer of a Death Metal band on ‘童趣猫耳手表.’ Rocking Hello Kitty bling and flexing with a hacksaw, Four4444 might just be the next evolution of Hip Hop that we are all afraid of but can’t stop.

In 2025, the salaryman strikes back as Miyachi released a full-length album and ripped apart his 30-minute set at Boiler Room Hong Kong. tokyovitamin was rocking a dope set for an hour and a half, but that’s when the salaryman in a white button-up shirt and tie jumped on the mic and showed why he’s one of the best live shows in Asian Hip Hop. By the end, when he raps over Migo’s ‘Bad and Boujee’ beat covered in sweat, all of the Hong Kong Boiler Room is his.

On a trip to India, Reble was the name that everyone wanted to talk about. LiFTED ran a LiFTED 5 on her in May, when most of her verses were features on other artists’ tracks. Then, in October she brought the pain with ‘New Riot,’ and things changed. She got a slot at Rolling Loud India, and now, Reble is living up to her hype. Expect big things from her in 2026 and beyond.

JP The Wavy was one of LiFTED’s earliest coverstars, and has been close to the top of the LiFTED 50 each year it’s been done. In 2025, though, magic happened when one of the most celebrated contemporary artists heard one of Wavy’s songs on his daughter’s phone. Soon, Takashi Murakami and JP were in the studio making music. The trippy, spaced out vibe needed a name so the MNNK BRO was born. They released the song ‘Mononoke Kyoto,’ and then they made ‘LV Murakami’ for Louis Vuitton, and the wildest video and branding campaign of 2025. ‘LV Murakami’ not only has the two incredible Japanese artists but also features Zendaya, the It-Girl of the 2020s.

In 2025, Thailand’s biggest Rap star pushed himself into the stratosphere with his creative output. He put out an album in October called Nightlight and the video with the same name is a lot like what is amazing about YoungOhm. It’s just raw and raunchy enough to be incredibly artistic, but also very streetwise and smart. He’s not re-writing the creative book, but it has a soul that can be felt on the first watch. Everything YoungOhm does, we are checking for forever.

It’s been a lot of years since videos came with warnings, which may be saying something about society as a whole. Nepal’s biggest rapper, VTen, put out his horrorcore masterpiece ‘JYO JYO’ in January, and earned the warning in the first few seconds as there is a fight club, a meth lab, and a butcher shop. The dark, brooding themes of the song fit the visuals perfectly as VTen shows that there are bad corners in every part of the world. Sometimes art is supposed to move people in ways that don’t make them feel comfortable, and ‘JYO JYO’ is one of those times.