Case studies (3rd - Wale)

The setting is in a place where the artist depicts a time before the money, where he came to a point of realization of everything going on in the world, and how our generation is so focused on clothes and materialistic things in life but we’re still trapped, locked into a system… The whole essence of it is that really everything about money ruined everything around us

The video follows a narrative story everyday life in an environment such as the artists and the things they have to do to get by. It implies how our generation is run by materialistic things, and how the money has basically “taken over”. It follows a story of what appears to be what he sees in his everyday life, and things he does for the money, but the video explains how it is the money which is killing our society. It doesn’t involve performance such as dancing etc, like how Kendricks song does, it is more narrative based following a storyline of a teenager who sees the money and lifestyle the drug dealers had, and ended up killing them for the money.This music video explores the themes of life in “struggle” and connotes the “dollar and a dream” idea, which is a recurring idea throughout.

There are two parts simultaneously occurring in the music video: the actual story or what’s going on, and the artist who is explaining the situations. During the storyline it uses several close up shots, and extreme close up shots, and special effects like black&white, and slow motion. It uses this as it makes the storyline more personal and brings a closer connection to the audience from the music video. The mise en scene for the video

Again the target audience for this would be young adults and teenagers between the age of 16-26. This would be because the target audience for rap/ hip hop music is usually between this age range; It is usually the artists who make the music who are themselves between this age range, therefore the audience are able to relate to them well, which would be what  encourages them to buy the record

Similarly to Kendrick Lamar’s – Alright music video which I had used as one of my case studies, this one uses Black and white for the music video. I think the use of this is to relate to the meaning of the lyrics, as black and white reflects the idea of it being simplistic; the song implies how we shouldn’t focus on these things but should look at the bigger picture in life and the simple things which we don’t show as much appreciation to. Seeing as this was used in two of my case studies I think that it is something which I could take from the videos to use in my own, as my music video will have similar meanings/messages to it, therefore I could use these conventions to convey them better.