--- description: Take away the tunes from the big hit by DJ Snake and Lil Jon and you have a strange tale of unbridled male sexuality. title: WATCH: The ‘Turn Down for What’ Music Video Without Music image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Newsfeed](/tag/time-section-newsfeed/) ## Newsfeed Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # The ‘Turn Down for What’ Music Video Is Even Weirder Without Music by [Kyle Chayka](/author/kyle-chayka/) ## Kyle Chayka Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jul 29, 2014 6:41 PM CUT by [Kyle Chayka](/author/kyle-chayka/) ## Kyle Chayka Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jul 29, 2014 6:41 PM CUT The music video for DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s cryptic smash hit “Turn Down for What” is pretty freaky. The protagonist gets hit with some kind of contagious twerking disease and starts smashing things with his genitals. But maybe the lyrics explain the action: the video definitely doesn’t turn down for anything, “keeping the partying going,” as [Vox put it](http://www.vox.com/2014/7/9/5884941/turning-down-for-what-explained "undefined"). But when you remove the music, as in this surreal YouTube edit, it’s ten times more bizarre. Without the justification of the lyrics, the video seems to be… a fairy tale about a man who can’t stop air-humping things? ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3051864/turn-down-for-what-music-video-silent/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3051864/turn-down-for-what-music-video-silent/"},"headline":"The ‘Turn Down for What’ Music Video Is Even Weirder Without Music","datePublished":"2014-07-29T18:41:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:12:00.405Z","description":"Turn down… the volume?","url":"https://time.com/3051864/turn-down-for-what-music-video-silent/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Music","viral","Hip-Hop","Music Video"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kyle Chayka","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/kyle-chayka/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3051864/turn-down-for-what-music-video-silent/","name":"The ‘Turn Down for What’ Music Video Is Even Weirder Without Music"}}]}] ```