1. In what ways are the traditional aspects of the hip hop genre
broken or remade in the music video for 99 Problems by Jay-Z?
When it came to thinking about the music for 99 problems Jay-Z wanted to show the
neighbourhood he grew up in. This comes across in the video as a lot of it is shots of the
housing projects and scenery of the city. A few music videos show the surroundings, for
example, N.W.A’s music video for straight out of Compton shows the city but Jay-Z’s one
differs as his shows shots and it looks like photography the way the shots are captured with
a real sense of emphasis put into the shots.
The music video is mostly narrative. It doesn’t follow one story it portrays different people
from the city such as the break dancers in the street, the men having their mug shots taken,
like a visual representation of the area and its people. This is unusual as most hip hop music
videos are performance based and show the artists only for example Snoop Dog’s ‘Drop it
Like it’s Hot’ music video is mostly him and Pharell lip-syncing into the camera.
Jay-Z’s music video is in black and white which forces the viewer to focus on what is being
shown. This adds to the tone of the music video as it is like a documentary about the city he
grew up in. This also adds to the aesthetic of the video as Jay-Z wanted it to be quite
different from generic music videos form the time which were all in colour.
Like a typical rap video it shows women dancing but it doesn’t show them dancing onto the
artists, it shows them at a club dancing in the club. This is different from most rap videos as
a lot of them have the girls dancing onto the artist to show that ‘he can get girls’.
The music video features a lot of black people which is representative of the area but also of
who Jay-Z grew up around. A lot of artists will have a posse of mostly black friends around
them to represent their audience and their people but Jay-Z has presented it differently;
from the music video I can gather that he makes black music for black people because that’s
who he’s grown up around and taken inspiration from. The way he has the black people
listening to him in the club and the black kids dancing to hip hop on the street portrays and
emphasizes the main audience and creators of hip hop music. He’s portrayed t with a
deeper meaning rather than how most hip hop videos just portray it as ‘black music’, Jay-Z
makes it seem like part of black culture.