Plan B's music video for "ill Manors" uses various cinematic techniques to develop a genre of protest hip-hop. The urban London setting and costumes worn by the performers, such as hoodies, aim to represent the lived experiences of disenfranchised youth. Through realistic depictions of both dancing and violence, Plan B portrays the complex realities of modern British society. The video also references political issues and incorporates representations of gender and race to comment on social issues like the 2011 London riots.
This is a SlidShare created to show the conventions of a typical Pop Rock digipak. Despite the fact that this pack is based on a band as opposed to an individual artist, I still chose to analyse it due to the fact that it makes me more aware of conventions within this genre and i am able to adapt a particular element to suit my situation if something was to appeal to me.
This is a SlidShare created to show the conventions of a typical Pop Rock digipak. Despite the fact that this pack is based on a band as opposed to an individual artist, I still chose to analyse it due to the fact that it makes me more aware of conventions within this genre and i am able to adapt a particular element to suit my situation if something was to appeal to me.
Muzing New Hoods, Making New Identities Film, Hip-Hop Culture.docxroushhsiu
Muzing New Hoods, Making New Identities: Film, Hip-Hop Culture, and Jazz Music
Author(s): Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr.
Source: Callaloo, Vol. 25, No. 1, Jazz Poetics: A Special Issue (Winter, 2002), pp. 309-320
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3300430 .
Accessed: 20/10/2011 00:08
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MUZING NEW HOODS, MAKING NEW IDENTITIES
Film, Hip-Hop Culture, and Jazz Music
by Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr.
We make our lives in identifications with the texts around us
everyday.
Anahid Kassabian, Hearing Film Music
The medium of film has communicated, shaped, reproduced and challenged
various notions of black subjectivity in 20th century America since D.W. Griffith's
Birth of a Nation appeared in 1915. Writing in 1949, Ralph Ellison argued that Birth of
a Nation "forged the twin screen image of the Negro as bestial rapist and grinning, eye-
rolling clown-stereotypes that are still with us today" (Ellison 275). Such depictions
in cinema had already existed in print media; and they have persisted in all mass-
mediated contexts in varying degrees throughout the century. Film, however, has
provided a most salient medium for the visual representation of African American
subjects. If, as Manthia Diawara has argued, the camera is, "the most important
invention of modern time," then it becomes an even more powerful tool when its
technology is combined with the powers of music. Indeed, when filmmakers combine
cinematic images and musical gestures they unite two of our most compelling modes
of perception: the visual and the aural.
Below I consider two films produced during the Age of Hip Hop: Spike Lee's Do
the Right Thing (1989) and Theodore Witcher's Love Jones (1997).1 On an immediate
level, I am interested how music shapes the way we perceive these cinematic
narratives individually; how music informs the way audiences experience their
characters, locations, and plots. But I am also making a larger argument for how the
musical scores of these films are sites for the negotiation of personal identity and self-
fashioning on the one hand, and the making and negotiation of group identity, on the
othe ...
Rise Up Hip Hop Nation From Deconstructing Racial Politics to Build.docxkathyledlow2rr
Rise Up Hip Hop Nation: From Deconstructing Racial Politics to Building Positive
Solution
s
Kristine Wright
Posted on April 16, 2011 by
sdonline
http://sdonline.org/36/rise-up-hip-hop-nation-from-deconstructing-racial-politics-to-building-positive-solutions/
Life is your right
, so we can’t give up the fight.
—
Bob Marley
Defining Hip Hop
From society’s periphery, a generation created a cultural medium,
hip hop
, that served as both an expression of and an alternative to urban woes plaguing their lives, namely underemployment, poverty, and racial discrimination. Rap music and the associated fashion, language, and dance styles became hip hop’s modes of expression. For many African American youth, hip hop has been a part of their cultural identity since the 1970s (Rose 1994; George 1998). Today, hip hop’s influence on popular culture is undeniable. From its inception three decades ago, hip hop has grown from an urban, predominantly black and Latino youth culture into an international youth phenomenon transcending racial and ethnic lines.
The term hip hop describes urban youth culture in America (Smitherman 1997). Hazzard-Donald (1996) defines hip hop as an expressive cultural genre originating among marginalized African American youth. Forms of hip hop expression include rapping and rap music, graffiti writing, dance styles (originating with break-dancing), specific attire, and a specialized language and vocabulary. According to Smitherman, hip hop grew out of African oral tradition and other forms of black culture, as well as a long history of interaction between black and Latino urban culture, originating in the Bronx, New York (Guevara 1996). George (1998) offers this succinct description:
At its most elemental level hip hop is a product of post-civil rights era America, a set of cultural forms originally nurtured by African American, Caribbean-American, and Latin American youth in and around New York in the ’70s. Its most popular vehicle of expression has been music, though dance, painting, fashion, video, crime, and commerce are also its playing fields (viii).
Hip hop culture transcends the commercialized product sold to mainstream America through commercials and music videos. It is more than the music, fashion, and style that is now so popular among youth everywhere. Although these are its modes of expression, hip hop as a culture is rooted in the day-to-day experiences of millions of inner city teens. As Spiegler (1996) describes it, hip hop is based on real life experiences, giving it more permanence than earlier teen trends.
In the beginning, the expression of hip hop culture known as rap was the voice of the urban youth underclass. According to Smitherman, rap music was a response to conditions of poverty, joblessness, and disempowerment, which still deeply affect the lives of the majority of African American urban youth today. Not only was rap music a black expressive cultural phenomenon, it was also a discourse of resistanc.
HIP HOP ARTIST’S INFORMATION CAMPAIGNS: A PEDESTRIAN AWARENESS THINGTerence Morris
Hip-Hop artists through vocal and visual thematic songwriting, as well as, cinematic representations have systemized "pedestrian awareness cross-cultural information campaigns."
Operation “Blue Star” is the only event in the history of Independent India where the state went into war with its own people. Even after about 40 years it is not clear if it was culmination of states anger over people of the region, a political game of power or start of dictatorial chapter in the democratic setup.
The people of Punjab felt alienated from main stream due to denial of their just demands during a long democratic struggle since independence. As it happen all over the word, it led to militant struggle with great loss of lives of military, police and civilian personnel. Killing of Indira Gandhi and massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other India cities was also associated with this movement.
Normal Labour/ Stages of Labour/ Mechanism of LabourWasim Ak
Normal labor is also termed spontaneous labor, defined as the natural physiological process through which the fetus, placenta, and membranes are expelled from the uterus through the birth canal at term (37 to 42 weeks
The French Revolution, which began in 1789, was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France. It marked the decline of absolute monarchies, the rise of secular and democratic republics, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. This revolutionary period is crucial in understanding the transition from feudalism to modernity in Europe.
For more information, visit-www.vavaclasses.com
Acetabularia Information For Class 9 .docxvaibhavrinwa19
Acetabularia acetabulum is a single-celled green alga that in its vegetative state is morphologically differentiated into a basal rhizoid and an axially elongated stalk, which bears whorls of branching hairs. The single diploid nucleus resides in the rhizoid.
Model Attribute Check Company Auto PropertyCeline George
In Odoo, the multi-company feature allows you to manage multiple companies within a single Odoo database instance. Each company can have its own configurations while still sharing common resources such as products, customers, and suppliers.
1. ill Manors – Plan B
The use of genre in a chosen music
video
2. Track: ill Manors
Artist: Plan B (Ben Drew)
Genre: Hip-hop, protest
Date released: 25 March 2012
Origin: Lead single from the ‘ill Manors’
film soundtrack, also directed by Plan B
Awards: Q Award for Best Track (October
2012)
4. Location
Throughout the music video, the focus never changes from this thoroughly urban setting.
Features such as tower blocks, pictured here, car parks and council estates form the
backdrop of Plan B’s protest song. The run-down areas and grey landscape add to the bleak
nature of the song and help Plan B to develop the genre of hip-hop beyond an urban genre
concerned with social commentary, and more as a harsh depiction and criticism of modern
life. Also, the urban setting adds to the idea of modernity as Plan B’s particular style is very
original.
The location of London is also key in conveying the genre of Plan B’s ‘ill Manors’ for many
different reasons. Firstly, ‘ill Manors’ is largely described as a reaction to the 2011 London
riots, and the references in Plan B’s lyrics to looting, and the anger of the rioters at the
government: “What needs fixing is the system / Not shop windows down in Brixton / Riots on
the television / You can’t put us all in prison!” There are also other references to modern
issues in London such as the vast amount of money being spent on the 2012 Olympics while
little help is being given to resolve the city’s poverty.
5. Location
Being the centre of Britain’s politics, London appears the perfect place for the genre of protest
music to take place as it’s the heart of political decisions and action. Frequent images of
politicians such as David Cameron and Nick Clegg reinforce this political message and
harness the emotions of the targeted audience. In 2013, findings were published that stated
that ¼ of households in London received council tax benefit, and furthermore that London’s
benefits bill reached £36 billion in 2013 – a higher amount than the total defence budget. With
these huge problems facing the population of London, there is no doubt a lot of anger and
resentment felt towards the government. Setting this genre of music against the backdrop of
these political issues and appealing to this alienated audience through lyrics such as “We’ve
had it with you politicians / You bloody rich kids never listen / There’s no such thing as
broken Britain / We’re just bloody broke in Britain”. Psychoanalyst Lacan stated that
audiences relate to texts where they can identify the representations with aspects of
themselves and the location helps to add to this as much of Plan B’s audience may live in
London, and therefore be directly affected by the issues he raps about, or are living in a
similar setting.
6. Costume
Plan B relies on the stereotypical costume of youth throughout the video of hoodies,
tracksuits and caps. A Guardian article after the 2011 London riots described the hoodie as
“the ultimate symbol of exclusion and menace” that is now a “criminal cloak for London's
looting youth”. By dressing his actors in this universally recognisable symbol of deviant youth,
Plan B clearly roots his genre as a genre for the young people of today, and possibly has an
idealised audience in mind of other young people with similar ideals and opinions as him.
This idea is in keeping with Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding model, whereby Plan B has
maximised on the stereotypes of youth and recognisable imagery, such as clothing, so that
audiences are more likely to identify with the performers and to give a preferred reading of
the text as opposed to an aberrant reading.
Much of the costume in the video is also used as a form of obscuring the performers’ identity,
as a direct link to the 2011 riots, through the use of hoodies, caps and bandanas across the
performers’ faces. The use of this costume helps to create a collective identity for deviant
youth, representing them as a faceless mob.
7. Costume
This largely negative portrayals of youth help Plan B to reinforce the genre of protest hip-hop
that he appears to be developing. By frequently relying on stereotypes of youth throughout
the video, Plan B is able to satirise this common perception of youth, which he states himself
in an interview. By taking the protest genre further than simply social commentary, he seeks
to satirise and question the current social situation in Britain, through exaggerating the ways
in which the general public views young people. Furthermore, Theorist Cohen suggested that
society goes through periods of moral panics and that it needs someone to blame. To
support this, Giroux described youth as an ‘empty category’, through which the media reflects
adult needs, desires and anxieties. In playing with these concepts, Plan B is able to capture
the zeitgeist of society’s fear of its own youth, while questioning the validity of this fear.
Plan B also reflects the conventions of the hip-hop genre through his choice of costume for
his performers. Tracksuits, caps, hoodies and bandanas are frequently used in music videos
in this genre, as it can be seen in the two examples below taken from Nas’ ‘Nas Is Like’ and
Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Love This Town’. Nas, an American artist, and Dizzee, a British one, illustrate
the fact that this dress is a universally recognisable symbol of the hip-hop genre.
8. Lighting, action and props
The lighting that Plan B uses through the majority of the video is bright, with a muting of
colours to sustain the greyness of the cinematography. This exposure helps to add to the
bleak, gritty realism approach that Plan B takes to this genre – emphasising the issues that he
is examining. Furthermore, this bright exposure works with the idea that Plan B is attempting
to expose the deep issues that modern British society is facing. This lighting also works in
good contrast with the darker lighting in the car park, where some youths are assaulting
some people. Plan B stated himself that his music video to ‘ill Manors’ was concerned with
“dark, true reality” and he attempts to show the darker side of British youth with the depiction
of violence and gang culture. The action within the music video is very much in keeping with
Plan B’s development of the hip-hop/social commentary genre in its adherence to realism.
The video shows a range of action on the part of the youth from dancing to looting to violent
assault. The realist approach can be seen in the combination of both of these representations
as Plan B is not denying the violent, destructive side of youth culture but simultaneously
highlights the individuality and creativeness of young people through their expressiveness in
dance.
9. Lighting, action and props
Plan B plays with the use of props throughout the video to reinforce the genre of his music
video. The modernity of the genre is represented through the use of technologies such as
mobile phones, clearly rooting the audience of the genre as a young, modern audience.
Furthermore, the girl pictured below with the mobile phone is videoing someone being
assaulted by a group of youths, possibly as a reference to the awful social phenomenon of
‘happy slapping’. By referencing key issues that young people are discussing today and the
use of social media, Plan B keeps the genre very up-to-date and relevant for his audience.
However, there are some props used within the video to depict more negative representations
of youth. Props such as baseball bats and pit-bulls add to the violent, threatening image of
young people that is so often pioneered by the media. However, this fits with the darker
elements of the genre and Plan B isn’t hiding the more brutal sides of the issues that he’s
exploring. In addition, the use of props such as cigarettes adds to the idea of deviant youth,
who Plan B is targeting.
10. Representation of gender and race
Although Plan B himself is a white artist, a large proportion of his performers in the video for ‘ill
Manors’ are black. In relation to the 2011 London riots, race was a key issue that is largely
attributed as the cause of the riots. The shooting of unarmed black teenager Mark Duggan by
police in 2011 sparked indignation as many believed that institutional racism was the cause of
his death. This was heightened by the poor handling of the case by the police concerning
contradictory witness statements and the fact that Duggan was unarmed – drawing into
question the legitimacy of the police’s decision to shoot him. Perhaps consequently, 39% of
arrested rioters in London were black, holding a majority over white involvement, possibly
because they were more angered by the causes of the 2011 riots. Dizzee Rascal, a UK rap and
grime artist, also explores the concept of youths rioting in his video for ‘Love This Town’,
pictured below, by using black performers as rioters in his video.
Furthermore, Plan B highlights the roots of hip-hop in black culture through the dance element
of his video. Break dancing which emerged in the 1980s stemmed from African American
culture and the black performers in the video cement this link to hip-hop’s origins.
11. Representation of gender and race
Plan B’s liberal attitude towards gender in his music video can be seen through the inclusion
of both male and females in his group of performers. This challenges the convention of
gender roles in the hip-hop genre, as trophies or objects to surround the male artist. Images
of hyper-sexualised women are often used to glorify the ‘gangster’ lifestyle associated with
this genre. Unlike Laura Mulvey’s study of the male gaze in mainstream genres, Plan B avoids
the objectification of women completely in his video by including them in this collective.
Despite this, the roles that women play in the video do seem to conform to other stereotypes
of women in the media. Pictured below is a girl videoing a fight on her phone, rather than
being involved in the action herself, and the theme of active men and passive women is
continued throughout the video. This reinforces the stereotype of women as bystanders, who
are too weak to be included in the action or are simply excluded. This contradicts Plan B’s
progressive style that he brings to the genre through his stance on social issues, yet his
perhaps less progressive attitude towards women becomes apparent in this video.
The focus on male youth in the video is not wholly inaccurate though, as 89% of arrested
rioters in the 2011 riots were male which is shown through the clips of rioting in the video.
12. References to other texts
Plan B uses references to the media throughout the video
to reinforce the protest genre as he is able to directly
criticise and reference key social issues and debates such
as Cameron’s alleged ‘hug a hoodie’ campaign and the
image, pictured here, of a youth making a sign of shooting
Cameron. By including these current social debates it helps
to retain audience interest and engages them directly in the
protest genre as they form their own opinions as they watch
the music video.
This idea is also in keeping with hip-hop’s long history with
social commentary – as can be seen in examples such as
Nas and Tupac – which cements the genres
simultaneously within the video.
The scene in the car park where there is a choreographed
fight scene is very similar to the break dancing scene in
Leftfield’s ‘Afrika Shox’. This track is also a development of the
hip-hop genre with the element of social criticism. However,
both videos ensure to reference the roots of their niche genre
in hip-hop culture, and appeal largely to a younger audience.