Textual analysis of music videos

House Of Pharaohs - Mean Muggin

• Mean Muggin is of the Underground Hip Hop/Rap genre. The typical motif’s it involves is street shots, hype culture and use of monochrome.
• This video is monochrome, making use of script and unusual camera angles and cuts.
• Throughout this video the visuals are perfectly timed with the lyrics and text – for example, when the first piece of text comes up ‘mean muggin’ there is a shot of policemen – possibly emphasising the cultures typical disliking to the police forces.
• In a lot of hip hop music videos the music often cuts to the beat and tempo changes. One key part in which this is shown is at 1:14. As the word ‘Wait’ is said, the music and video cuts to another scene in which one of the artists AJ is freestyling at an event, the film also comes back to colour also. This creates great juxtaposition and draws the audience’s attention even further in. In having this scene cut it allows the group to give a glimpse of their live performances to their audience possibly even generating an interest in seeing them live.
• Also in this music video when it is the artists verse, they get the screen time – although there are crosscuts of the rest of the group/scenery the specific artist is usually the main focus.
• Although the music has a chill vibe and tempo, the group still want to get there ‘hype culture’ shown. They do this by using few fast paced shots amongst slower tempo shots. This works in keeping the energy up within the video and not leaving the audience bored.
• This video is entirely performance-based, not making use of concept or story but simply following the artists and showcasing them, much like our video. This is popular within underground Hip Hop/ Rap.
• As this is a big rap group, they tend to like the idea of elevation and power. They want to be seen as big within the rap scene and as competition – In achieving this they have made use of low camera angles which makes them appear bigger and therefore more intimidating to the audience and other artists. Also many of their shots are of them as a big group, creating a sense of brotherhood and unity making them moreso aggressive.
  

Kojey Radical - BAMBU

• Kojey Radical’s Bambu, unlike Mean Muggin is of the same underground culture and genre however is mostly concept based. Using their main character as a metaphor – “Using contemporary dance and performance art to gesture the struggles of inner city decay and how that is translated and celebrated within music and urban culture combining the aesthetic of a modern fashion film with the stylised movement and grittiness of drill music and trap videos.”

• The video starts with an eerie tone in which the title of the songs script appears – With this music the video fades in and out of focus with unusual abstract composition to fit the offsetting mood. The video also pulses black with the music to set the pace.

• Throughout the video there are many dynamic London building shots, they have done this as the video is centred in South London culture.

• The metaphorical character mysteriously appears throughout the panning shots as though he is around every corner – to make him appear even more unusual – odd abstract shots, reverse’s and camera angles have been used to emphasise his unusual presence.

• The visuals naturally have a grey tone, with lowered saturation. They have done this and painted the male black because often people perceive lighter as better and therefore the black character is making an incredibly powerful statement in making the audience feel somewhat intimidated

• The visuals are incredibly intelligent and complex to match the incredibly smart lyricism and metaphor.

• As the song comes to an end the visuals get more and more intense with more going on than in the previous relatively simple visuals. A slight change of theme comes about as Kojey raps about ‘girls gyrating for money’ as his anger develops the video also gets more complicated – with the staple quote “Jaded eyes see only jaded solutions.” A quote that is often associated with this video and tweeted by many followers of his.

• Finally in the last scene as the music has an aggressive change we start seeing the ‘hype culture’ introduced again – Kojey is suddenly surrounded by lots of other youths who begin dancing aggressively to the music bringing back the idea of youth culture being in unity – this leaves the audience with an impact.