The music video was directed by Sam Brown and was filmed in November 2009. The video premiered on January 1, 2010 on New Year’s Eve with Carson Daly. Although it was uploaded on YouTube on December 31, 2009, it has been called the first music video of the decade, though its New Year’s Eve upload date contradicts that title.

Acclaimed VMA-winning director Sam Brown (Jay-Z’s “On to the Next One,” Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Put Your Records On”) said he created the visually stunning clip in collaboration with the singer, who was a fan of the Jigga video and sought him out.
On To The Next One is highly surreal. It appears in black and white, and the people, symbols, and characters in the video seem to be wearing black and white colors to coincide with the video. There are split second scenes while there are somewhat of an abundance of biblical references in it. Throughout the video, there are crucifixes, angelic symbols, a skull reminiscent of Damien Hirst‘s famous sculpture For the Love of God and often Baphomet. During part of the music video,the music stops, and the audience sees producer Swizz Beatz with his back to them as he seemingly makes the symbol with his coat by raising his hands. There is a cameo appearance by Colin Bailey, better known as Drums of Death, who is known for his skull face paint. In the video, Bailey appears to be perplexed, confused, and/or mad. At approximately three minutes and thirty nine seconds into the video, there are two bullets on either side of a crucifix. Rapper Young Jeezy also makes a cameo in the video.

 
We also found an interesting interview made by Vibe, here the first Q&A:

 
VIBE: When you were first approached about directing Jay-Z’s “On To The Next One” did you feel you had to shoot the video differently considering it was hip-hop?

Sam Brown: It was important to ignore the fact that it was a hip-hop video, and simply make a video. It was going to be radical almost by default because the hip-hop video is an oddly conservative genre…it seems more stuck in its message than other types of music videos. But also, I wanted to make a video that appealed to hip-hop fans.

There’s been a lot of talk about Jay’s video containing Freemason imagery such as the horned animal head, an eagle and skull. What are your thoughts about such talk and why do you think music fans are so quick to believe a conspiracy narrative?
 
I’m aware of the stir the video has caused and what people are saying. I think when you’re dealing in abstract imagery people are going to want to draw lines between things and make sense of it. However, I’ve always felt that the viewing public was, in general, extremely visually literate. They don’t always want or need things to be spelt out for them. One of the great things about music videos are they can be enjoyed purely visually—it doesn’t need to mean anything or make any sense. Conspiracy theory is another thing entirely, and seems to me to be about projecting pre-existing beliefs and desperately looking for things that confirm them. There is imagery in this video that is drawn from all over the place. None of it is owned by any one culture or belief system. You can connect anything if you try hard enough, and make it mean anything you want it to.

Were there any differences between filming the more low-key likes of the Corinne Bailey Rae and James Blunt and an in-your-face artist like Jay-Z?
 
I tend to approach all types of artists in the same way. I try not to have preconceived ideas of who an artist is, or what they’re going to like. Whoever they are it’s good to take chances with them, and to ignore what they’ve done before.
 

(for the full interview click here)