This document analyzes the music video for "Afrika Shox" by Leftfield. It discusses how the video uses visual elements to represent the electronic music genre and reinforce the song's lyrics about racism and imprisonment. Specific visuals like police lights, city skyscrapers, and dancing are examined. The main character is an African man wandering New York City in pursuit of something, and close-ups make viewers uncomfortable. Intertextual references to films like The Matrix and depictions of refugees are also noted.

1. How Chris Cunningham uses
media language in Leftfield's
"Afrika Shox"

2. Genre Characteristics
• Leftfield are a band that play a few different genres including dance, hip hop and
electronic progressive.
• The lights on the police car in the first few moments portray lights you would see at a
dance show, they immediately establish the genre of the song and connote a club.
• The skyscrapers are metallic looking which is associated with the genre, they give a sense
off dullness before the police car comes in to shed some light and bring abit of joy to the
people of new York, this is portraying the lives of people who work all day and then can
party in the evening.
• The African man seems to be invisible to the world because no one seems to notice him
when he is walking about the city. This connotes to the fact that leftfield were an
underground band who weren’t seen before this song and video appeared, showing that
they have come out of hiding in the suburbs and into the light.
• The police man with the walkie talkie is also another reference to genre because he is
standing there looking out for anyone bad, and at a lot of these gigs in this genre there is
a lot of bad things that happen.

3. Relationship between lyrics and visuals
• One lyric “lets get electrified” is a literal representation of the barbed
wire in the video. The barbed wire is showing us as the audience that
he is imprisoned within the city and is a prisoner of war just like the
Jews were in world war two.
• This sequence also reinforces the use of racism, because in the video
there are a few low angle shots that show the skyscraper and the wire
fence to be ethnically white dominated. The fence suggests he
doesn’t have access to power and that he is a prisoner.

4. Relationship between music and visuals
• The music is has quite a fast beat and in some cases the shots are
jumpy which follow suit of the music and in some cases when the
music is slowed down the shots are elongated to hold the music out.
• When the break dancers are shown on screen they are dancing in
time to the music, this shows a direct correlation between the music
and visuals.

5. The main character
• Throughout the video there is an African man wandering the streets
of new York in pursuit of something which is probably happiness,
there are a lot of close up in the video which make the audience feel
uncomfortable looking at this creature.
• The stumbling African and the close ups keep the audience hooked on
what is happening and want them to find out what happens to him.
Because he keeps stumbling its suggests that he is injured or weak
like a war veteran or a slave.

6. Intertextuality
• Throughout the video there are plenty of intertextual references. For
example New York is shown to be an urban dystopia which is
referenced in futuristic films like The Matrix and The Blade Runner.
• The African man is shown as a zombie which is shown throughout
other productions over the course of the last 50 years.
• The African man looks like he is fleeing from somewhere which is a
reference to refugees who flee their home in order for safety which is
what he is doing.