Rap Music Video Conforms and Subverts Genre Conventions
1. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and convections of
real media text
2. • For my media production I created a music video
that was based within the rap genre, the reason I
have chosen to create a music video from this genre
is due to the background experience I have with the
genre and that is the one that I feel most
comfortable with. Through most of the production I
have chosen to conform to most of the conventions
and traditions that are presented within the genre
and subverted the ones that have presented some
difficulty.
3. Conforming to conventions
• I have conformed to the typical conventions that
people would think to see within this genre of music
video as it is expected to see these kind of things in a
music video of this genre
First of all I have chosen to select a
black artist for the music video. Black
4. • Black people are the most represented in this genre, many
people associate rap music with violence, crime, drugs and
black people. In addition they are represented like this
because most artist within this filed come from a black
background or come from the ghetto where most black artist
are found. Also in order to connect to the target audience I
have chosen an artist that they could recognise from his
background and relate it to themselves. This is done in order
to conform to audience pleasures and make the music video
appealing.
5. Location
• My location choices are based around watching other music videos within the
genre and seeing where the ideal places are in order to create a rap music video.
Most artist don't come from luxurious background and struggled to get the fame
they have the cities they shown in music videos are a representation of that. I have
chosen inner city ghettos or rougher areas within the city in order to fully
represent what music is about. Most songs talk about the harsh backgrounds that
artist had to grow up in. In addition we wanted the lyrics to match the visuals that
are shown throughout the music video as they have great meaning to it
6. Iconography
In rap artist are very selective of how they
look to the audience, how appealing they
are will determine the amount of success
they have as well as their music. From these
artist I have taken aspects that they have
and put them together to create my artist.
For example the snapback frequently
associated with rappers as well as jewellery
I have chosen them as they are the most
popular and appealing right now with the
genre
7. Subverting
• While their were many things that I conformed to
within the genre I also subverting as well for good
reason
8. Use of drugs and weapons
• Within rap music sometimes it can become apparent
that there is strong use of drugs and weapons that
the artist do advertise win their music. This is mostly
because they come from gang related backgrounds
and use these things on a regular basis.
Weed and alcohol are heavily used in music
videos however I have chosen not to promote
these things in the music video.
9. Representation of women
• Women are another thing that are usually represented in
music videos however it isn't always good, they are normally
used as symbols of desire and bring strong attention to music
videos.
I have chosen to subvert and go
against the male gaze theory in my
music video