The video was directed by Jon Small and filmed at the Park Theater in Union City, New Jersey. The theater has remained largely unchanged since the video was filmed. Visitors may notice two holes in the ceiling toward the front of the stage where a light fixture was meant to be installed for the shoot. Small had an office at 1775 Broadway, the same building where Run-DMC's label Profile Records were based: Profile's co-owner Steve Plotnicki approached Small about directing the video, as he had directed another video by a black act that had broken through into rotation onto the then predominantly white rock-oriented MTV, Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All". Small believed that for the video to break into heavy play on MTV, it had to feature Tyler and Perry: he developed the concept of the bands playing on either side of a wall that was subsequently breached. The video's budget was a modest $67,000.