Textual analysis of music video 'Say It' by Tory Lanez

1. Textual Analysis 2
Tory Lanez- Say It

3. Introduction
• Tory Lanez is a singer/ songwriter within the HipHop and R&B
genres. Discovered in early 2010 by fellow musician Sean Kingston, after
watching a video he uploaded onto his youtube channel of himself free
styling, Tory soon found himself to be invited by Sean to join Justin Bieber
on stage during his tour.
• Over the years Tory Lanes found himself becoming more famous and
turning into a more mainstream artist. This was clear in 2015, when he
released his song 'Say It' which was his first single for his debut
studio album 'I Told You'.

5. Mise- En- Scene
• The video begins on the steps to an apartment in an unknown
neighborhood, giving the audience an idea that himself and his group of
friends do not have loads of money, but are still having a good time, which
is shown through them all laughing and joking.
• Tory and his group of friends all follow the generic conventions of artists
within the hip hop and r&b genre. For example, wearing hats, gold chains,
grills and having tatoos are all a common theme throughout music videos in
the genre I am studying.
• In contrast to this, during the music video Tory Lanez is also seen driving an
expensive car. This is also a generic convention of the rap genre. It is
something which is done by other artists such as Drake, Future and Kanye
West.

6. Storyline
• Starting off sitting on some apartment steps with his friends, Tory spots a
young girl who he is attracted to and takes this opportunity to ask for her
number. Reluctantly, she gives in and gets passed his phone.
• However, she does not take any further action to this situation because she
was not impressed straight away from his lack of wealth.
• Later on in the video, Tory rents a car and is seen driving it past the same
girl who previously wasn’t interested.
• Now though, she has changed her mind because she has seen his flash
car.
• All along, Tory knew what she was playing at, but still invited her to a party
with him, hoping she would be able to fall for him still once she got to know
him, beneath the flashy cars show off wealth.
• Sadly, the girl who attended the party left with another guy, but Tory knew it
was because he was richer than he was. She was only attracted to the
money.

7. Storyline in screenshots

8. Ideology
• Tory Lanez video for ‘Say It’ is sending a message to two different types of
people. The first one to the audience, saying that having materialistic items
such as fast cars and gold chains does not make you any more or less of a
good person.
• However, this ideology is challenged because at the end of the video, the
girl he fell for left the party with another man, who was richer than himself.
But after this, he shows he is not too bothered and he knew what she was
playing at all along.
• Secondly, he is sending out a question to similar rappers to himself, asking
why they feel like it is necessary to constantly expose their wealth through
objects to give themselves a more ‘confident’ and ‘in your face’ persona.