The Nextmen - Thinking Man's Session Q1-50



     1.Genre Characteristics
The genre of the song is rap. I believe this video very accurately presents and represents many conventions in the rap genre and culture.
The street setting of the 'gang' of boys directly exemplifies the environment in which gang culture and the genre of rap are set.
The clothing worn by all characters is highly associated with rap and hip/hop. They are all wearing casual sports clothes; shorts, jogging trousers, hoodies, basketball vests, ect. This ties in to another characteristic of rap, the association to sport and dance. This is also featured withi the video as in many shots, the group are playing basket ball and the main artist is performing modern hiphop dance and breakdance (1:28)
The saturated colours also flaunt the characteristics exemplified in this video. A key element to the gang culture associated to rap is the display of material possesions and clothing. By hightening the brightness of primary colours, it clearly emphasises the value of clothing in gang culture; a characteristic of the genre.


     2.  Lyrics/Visuals
As the primary directive of this video appears to be to sell the artist and emphasize gang culture, the need for lyrics to relate of visuals is minimal. However, in accordance with the bodily movements of rappers when they are rapping, some of the lyrics are 'acted out' with slight hand gestures. For example at (1:48) lyric: to write rhymes, the artist mimes writing on his hand. This is also a characteristic of many artists in the rap genre.


     3.  Music/Visuals
The editorial reactions to musical ornaments within the record are highly effective in this music video. The most interesting element of the editing of this video is the use of image 'shuffling', example: (0:11), when there is a disk scratching effect on the record. This creates the feel that the video and soundtrack are closely linked. I feel that this hightens the interest the veiwer has in the video as it gives a sense that the accompanying video is a necessity, or even that the music was written to the style of the video as opposed to the video being produced to support the music.  

     4. Needs of Record label
Clearly, due to use of branded clothing and centralisation of the artist, the needs of the record label were in high regard in the production of this video.
5.Voyeurism
6.Intertextuality