Genre characteristics:
-Urban setting: Brooklyn, NY - Jay Zs 'hood'. He makes a point of drawing our attention to this by revealing the name on his hoodie.
-Representations: of gangster lifestyle - crusing in cars, dog fights, loitering on the streets, getting pulled over by the police, basketball and guns.
- Street dancing/freestyle
- Scantily - clad 'sexy' women = cheap looking, gold bikinis
- Jail scenes - all inmates are black
- Stereotypical race representations - white guy in a suit, policeman is white, black people are on 'the streets'.
- Goes against convention of representations of wealth - lacks fancy cars, clothes, bling, women, etc.
Relationships between lyrics and visuals:
- 'From the hood' - pulled the hood down
- 'Radio' - shows visual of radio
- 'But the bitch ain't one' - female image of woman pouting.
- 'Jay Z' - pointed to himself.
- 'Fast forward' - moves hands gradually.
- 'Paparazzi' - flash movement of screen.
- 'Dollars' - does money signs with hands
- 'Hit me' - someone shots a pullet at him.
- 'talk to the Lord' - shows a crucifix.
- 'Put the pedal to the floor' - motorbike
- 'do you mind if I look round the car a little bit' - police officer goes around car.
Overall, images illustrate the lyrics - sometimes very literally somethings in a more subtle way.
Relationship between music and visual:
- Video is cut in time with the beat of the music.
- Music is hard - hitting, aggressive sounding with the emphasis on beat rather than melody - visuals are also harsh = looking and edits are fast paced to emphasis this aggression.
Influence of record label and use of close ups:
- Lots of shots of Jay Z - not all close ups but there are some.
- Close-ups of other men as well = looking.
- Shots of women are looking from long shots/mid shots - because they're not important.
- Less emphasis on Jay Z on his own - he is an established artist and doesn't need as much exposure.
- Jay Z has his own record label as well as being part of Island/ Def Jam - quite independent, evidence of less control by the label in this video than you might expect from a more mainstream/ major label.
References to the notion of looking/ voyeurism:
- Jay Z puts his hands over the camera so that it seems as through the audience is looking through his fingers.
-X ray vision shot of money in boot - we can see through the boot.
- Scopophillic treatment of women is quite uncomfortable to watch - seems totally unnecessary.
- Early establishing shots are almost point - of - view, creating the impression that the audience are looking around the hood.
- Video of Jay Z outside subway station.
Intertextual References:
- Possibly a video of him - referencing himself?
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