Thursday 26 January 2012

Analysing A Music Video 2 - 'Mama Do The Hump' by Rizzle Kicks

The next video I decided to look at was the video to 'Mama Do The Hump' by Rizzle Kicks released in November 2011. Although they are a British Hip Hop type genre band, they hold Indie features throughout their music style and also their music videos often have many similarities to a typical music video of the styles that I am looking at.



The video is very abstract along with the lyrics and are not there to tell a story or narrate. The video begins with two people preparing a hand hold camera, to then knock on the door of a house. The music does not play for the first 28 seconds, before it starts they enter the boys house, where they welcome one another. It looks very 'home made' and almost 'amateur' which many music video of these styles are. We can see it is a family gathering with the two elder ladies (who we guess are playing the dispatchers - mother figures)and men as well as the younger boys, who then go to the CD player and turn the music on - which where the music begins. When the boy is turning it on, he looks in to the camera and it is a close up of his face, he then walks away and is followed - the camera shot is quite shaky - showing the 'home made' and low budget film style that was intended within its genre characteristics. (In which I would like to show through out mine).


The camera then pans over to the elder lady at the table, who we assume to be the Mum of one of the boys, she then begins miming to the boys voice giving it a quirkiness and unique flow.
An element of Goodwin's theory can be seen within the Lyrics reflecting through images, the song is quite so repetitive for example 'a verse of rap, to the chorus and then back to the verse etc' and when it does break to the chorus the words "Mama do the hump mama do the hump hump, mama, Won't you please let me do the hump hump." Where each time we see the boys doing a 'signature move' specially for the song lyrics in which they get more and more people doing by the end of the video, including actor James Corden. Once the chorus is over, it repeats back to the ladies miming the lyrics.

In terms of notion of looking there is none and the gaze of how someone is presented, the ladies are often shown more on camera, and have much more action taking place rather than being restricted. In terms of representation it shows oppositions and contrasts with the stereotypes of elder women, which the audience would not expect as they are miming lyrics and acting younger then they are, where as the boys who are teenagers, are represented more sensible and more restricted from the camera.


There are extreme close ups on many of their faces which are contrasting with the stereotypical genre characteristics, meaning that usually the video and the camera shots would be prioritized on the band or on young and more attractive people who would be interested in the music. However the video juxtaposes this concept as it primarily sets if focus on the elder ladies, holding long shots on close up of their faces and they do not stereotypically represent people who would be attracted to their music.


Record labels do have certain control over artists that they sign and I think that through the video they wanted to represent the band as a modern and unique trendsetters to appeal to their younger audience - also meaning that both genders would be interested in the music video as it is not set to appeal to just females, or just males like other genres.


There is hardly any signs of Intertextuality within the music video, meaning that there are no other signs of other media examples - things that have been seen in other films/music videos within the same genre. By not including these examples allows the video to have its own uniqueness and creates its own signature video - which will be remembered through the video style, lyrics or signature dance from its audience (because it has not been shown before)

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